Things fall apart. Oh yes. The old fabric is torn away, or disintegrates, and all that. But, sometimes, when you least expect it, things fall into place, and new patterns and stories emerge. So, towards the end of January this year, things were looking pretty grim. It was a tough time, but one bright spot was the Pauline Boty exhibition at the Gazelli Art House in Mayfair, which was a revelation. I went early one Monday morning, soon after opening time, and was the only one there. It felt a privilege to be there, alone with Pauline’s now famous works of art, at a time when her reputation’s at a high. This being, as her evangelist Ali Smith argues in her Autumn, part of the cycle where cultural figures are ignored, lost, rediscovered, and so on.
