Delivered from the hallway, to the mirror, with the kettle in attendance.
My fellow committee member (for there is, in the end, only you, and you are also me), I rise to deliver the State of the Institute Address.
The state of the Institute is strong. It is, in fact, the strongest of any institution founded within the last several months, a category in which we remain, proudly, the leader.
A Year of Triumphs
Let us survey what we have achieved:
- We appointed me to a position I invented, a masterstroke of governance.
- We acquired a chair and a quantity of milk, expanding the permanent collection beyond all expectation.
- We won an award of our own design, weathered the Beige Controversy, and went international as far as the corner shop.
- We launched a newsletter, that the public might be told, in writing, what to think.
- We mounted a retrospective of nothing, the bravest exhibition of the season.
The Challenges Ahead
We do not pretend the road is smooth. Relations with the mirror remain unresolved. The galas remain unattended. Fun continues to break out without permission. And the sky, derivative as ever, refuses to grow.
But these are the burdens of greatness, and I carry them in a scarf chosen for the occasion.
A Closing Vision
I see a future in which the ordinary is taken seriously, the unremarkable is over-described, and every damp wall and doomed kebab is granted the dignity of a wall label. I see prints in tasteful bathrooms across the land. I see provenance, weightless and immediate. I see, frankly, me, presiding over all of it, lowering my voice.
The studio is open. The committee is waiting. I am, as ever, both.
Nigel Ponceby-Smythe, Director-General for Life, in his own words, to himself, at length