Brian Wilson, The Tate St Ives and the Beach Boys

During a typically wet British May bank holiday week end, Mrs Maytrees
and I visited Brian Wilson's "If everybody had an Ocean" art exhibition
at the Tate St Ives in Cornwall.

Disappointment was our joint and several reaction. There was a little
music by the Beach Boys which livened up the queue for the entrance tickets
in the exterior ampitheatre which is interestingly constructed
at the St Ives Tate's entrance.

I suppose that the incessant rain could have
put a dampner on our appreciation of the exhibition but the back drop of
huge breakers and fierce winds on the beach outside was really
dramatic and should have enhanced the exhibition and perhaps would
have, had the displays or even the gallery's atmosphere been worth a visit
which in my humble opinion they were not.
Usually the atmosphere at the Tate St Ives does make for
a worthwhile afternoon there but this time there was a greyness.
More Beach Boys' music within the galleries would have helped but in the main,
their music was noticeable by its absence

Many photographs of cars and people from the Beach Boys' era;
a few paintings which provided little of interest and
even less food for the imagination seem almost to sum it all up.

I wondered if Brian Wilson
and maybe even the other Beach Boys, whose era pre dates the current vogue for
celebrity status, were almost trying to capitalise on the 21st century
cult of the celebrity. The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and others
of that era did of course attract many followers but "groupies" as
such followers were often called, did not, at least in the early years,
become the kind of cult followers or worshippers of "celebrities",
that happens so often today, an extreme example of this being
Lady Diana RIP.

I would rather leave the great Beach Boys' music where
it is and restrict worship to the real God.

As a post script I see from the official blurb that the exhibition
was not authorised by Brian Wilson or the Beach Boys. Well done them.
Responsibility for encouraging the celebrity cult mentioned above
would therefore seem to be that of the Art establishment.