'Art today longs to be topical, outward-looking, connected, responsive to site and situation. And it spends a lot of time fretting that it isn't. But an event like the earthquake short-circuits this logic horribly.'

In these interesting times, Gallery staff are finding themselves turning their hand to a variety of tasks, sometimes a far call from their usual responsibilities when the Gallery is open to the public.

If I had to recommend one book to a course in curatorial studies it would be Victoria Newhouse's amazing study Art and the Power of Placement.

...as the Duke of Wellington supposedly said about Waterloo. Exhibition openings are always close run things with finishing touches being applied to labels and displays and fittings and lights right up to the moment the public are admitted.

They call it the 'yellow volkswagen effect': once you see one, you see them everywhere. It's been a little like that for me following Justin Paton's short-lived, terrific and – it turns out – strangely prescient exhibition De-Building, which opened to great acclaim on 5 February and closed forever on 22 February, for obvious, afore-mentioned reasons.