An honest curator will admit that judgement is fallible, especially for art made yesterday. - Nicholas Serota

After thirty years of looking at new work in galleries and even newer work in studios, I am very familiar with the experience of being completely at a loss when confronting a new idea or image.

The argument that new vision becomes the reference point for the future, is a line that I have been driven to use on many occasions.

In 1987 a Civil Service inquiry decided that the pay of the Director of the Tate Gallery should match that of the Director of the much larger Victoria & Albert Museum and of the National Gallery, where the pictures were regarded as being much more important, because, and here I quote, "the Director of the Tate has to deal with the very difficult problem of modern art".