Making an arty farty impression

Call me an unrefined bogan from the suburbs (because I am) but until recently I'd never been to an art gallery, and I'd never seen an art exhibition of any sort. Unless you count that time in high school when someone spray-painted several rather disturbing, larger-than-life appropriations of a male staff member's staff member on a wall as part of muck-up day. You might not call that art but trust me, pubescent schoolgirls know what they like.

So it was with great excitement that I went to the Bendigo Art Gallery to see their recent exhibition: the Archibald Prize. Apparently it's one of Australia's oldest and most prestigious art awards. Whatever. All I knew was that this year, it involved an absolutely cracking portrait of Heath Ledger (remember: bogan from the suburbs).

Heath's portrait was definitely brilliant and I was genuinely impressed by many of the portraits. However, I wasn't as impressed by some of the other gallery visitors. Hence my need to momentarily put aside my bogan status in order to decree what I feel are essential guidelines for visiting an art gallery based on what I saw at the Archibald exhibition:

1) Try not to stand directly in front of someone trying to view an artwork. Nobody's interested in viewing the back of a head (unless the exhibition is titled 'Backs Of Heads, 1950–Now').

2) Avoid mocking the art work. For example, pointing at a portrait of Neil Finn while shouting, “Fush and chups!” at the top of your lungs makes you look like a bit of a dick.

3) Similarly, “I could've done better than that” is generally not acceptable art critique.

4) Silently farting in front of an art work then immediately moving off so that your stink remains for the next person is neither funny nor clever. Seriously. You disgust me.

5) Any children with you should be mildly sedated and preferably kept on a leash.

Print this out and exhibit it on the wall of your favourite gallery at once.