We spent the night in Whanganui, partly because making the whole drive in one day would’ve been tiring, but more because we hadn’t ever been there before. The Sarjeant Gallery is one of the main attractions in the very pretty downtown.

We don’t go to museums very much, and I suspect that reinforces the feeling that we don’t enjoy them a whole lot. If we were aficionados we could maybe better appreciate all the behind-the-scenes things gallerists and curators do. Probably we’d know more about the art, so we would get more of the references and jokes contained in what we’re seeing. And we’d be better equipped to see the strengths in each artist’s work, even if they aren’t a towering genius.

As it was, we found the Sarjeant to be sort of fine. “A bunch of paintings and sculptures” would probably describe it. There were a few that caught my eye…

We actually enjoyed the community exhibition down in the basement at least as much as the more formal rooms.

The artist’s statement on this upside down vase was something to the effect of ‘the world is so full of misery… why are you concerned about this vase falling over?’ Hmmm.