Crackers...

The Tate Modern is one of my favourite places in London.

But sometimes this wonderful institution gets things wrong and, even though I’ve seen fantastic stuff such as the Louise Bourgeois bronze spiders in its massive Turbine Hall, I’ve also seen some cock.

And the latest piece of installation art to grace this space really does take the piss-flavoured biscuit. Because, and I shit you not, it’s a crack in the floor.

It’s called Shibboleth and it’s by Colombian artist Doris Salcedo. The crack begins at the entrance to the hall and branches off in certain places and starts to widen until it reaches the end of the hall. In some places it’s deep and others it’s skinny and that’s about it. Oh, and it’s supposed to represent the fact that society is divided along racial lines.

Remarkably the panel on Newsnight Review who discussed this nonsense were utterly wowed by it. ‘Salcedo is a genius!’ opined one. I remember people saying the same about Tracey Emin...

In my book Emin is a genius as she managed to convince some cocaine-hoovering moneyed twot (it's a combination word joining twat and tool) to part with several thousand pounds for a representation of a bed where she’d had a few fucks. Now I thought that was clever, particularly for Emin’s bank balance, and I think Salcedo is a similar creature, a latter-day snakeoil saleswoman of the modern art world.

So here’s the plan…

I reckon the Tate should close this Salcedo nonsense down immediately and instead celebrate home-grown talent. Luckily my grandfather used to dig holes for a living. The difference between him and Salcedo was that his holes served a useful purpose to get access to water drains and the like. So I reckon we go into the Tate when it’s shut, Polyfill Salcedo’s work in and recreate a few of my grandfather’s best holes.

I know for a fact he did loads of them so I bet there were some real beauties in his back catalogue. And if Salcedo can dominate the Tate Modern with her skinny hole I reckon my grandfather’s massive holes must be odds-on for the Turner prize at least.