Everyone loves a private view, and I am no exception. I don’t know how many hours I must have spent trudging around central London’s art galleries in search of warm white wine – my social life doesn’t extend much beyond the confines of that circuit to be honest. Lately, however, I’ve been to some dreadful things; shows that seem to exist purely in order to enable their ritzy opening galas. I suppose I have only myself to blame for turning up to an evening at London’s stupidest gallery last week, but it was truly horrible: a party thrown for a scenester artist who turned DJ for the night, spinning butchered mash-ups of 1980s club hits to a scrum of pouting influencers. As for the art: suffice to say I’m not giving anyone the dignity of a namecheck. (The gallery was Saatchi Yates.)

It was all making me feel a bit cynical. But then, at the tailend of the week, I saw two exhibitions of such remarkable quality that I remembered why I got into the game in the first place. The first came courtesy of the indefatigably brilliant Suzanne Treister, an artist of such dazzling originality that she puts most contemporaries to shame. And Prophetic Dreams, her career........

© The Spectator