Postscript: A month on from the opening and I made a return visit. Anya Gallacio's 500 flowers have decayed with sap spoiling the floor and fungal growth clouding the flower heads. It is evidence of the delicacy of floral life, but little more, and reinforces the banality of floral tributes wherever they are, at gravesides, in hospitals. Only plants flowering in their natural environment contribute perennially to life, art and beauty. This is merely decay-dent, facile, trivial and unnecessary. I look forward to 14 June when then next British Council selection is on show. These already looked tired, except the ever effervescent Bridget Riley.

The Guernica tapestry is still pleasant for all the weaving effort, more so than the original painting. The weaving process contributes immeasurably to the image. Individual figures, disfigured as Picasso related to others in his life-circle, can be separated and put to use in analysing the dynamics of a recent murder. Kuniyoshi spoke plainly, Picasso lived selfishly. Both can illuminate modern social decay.

I overheard an elderly American woman commenting on the tapestry. A young red-haired Canadian distanced himself from US history and war, and we chatted. I don't know if he realised that Canadian native people mined the uranium that Britain and the USA used in nuclear weapons development back in the 1950's. Three of us watched the video installation for a very long time. It was interestimg to hear a lawyer or law student visiting Iraq before, during and after the Iraq War. But there was no mention of the killing by Saddam Hussein of thousands of Kurds in their villages. Too few talkative people in the gallery to hold a conversation. No doves of peace, no Guernica effect. Wars continue anyway . . .

All the fanfare and then the review by Waldemar Januszczak headlined with 'messy installations and a devastating piece of political satire'. I had to go and see for myself though I usually trust WJ to tell it how it is. I'd seen a fat tome in the bookshop window with something about Jazz and Picasso. The manageress enthusiastically mounted the barricades and retrieved the book which sadly was yet another product branded like a Renault Picasso with almost nothing whatsoever to do with the name Picasso. The library was already overcrowded. The fittings far too lightweight for the deadweight forest of squashed arty 'narratives' imprinted in their leaves. I'm sure they will have to introduce a congestion charge to keep the traffic moving past the till. The books are in danger of being trampled underfoot in the charge. I bought four postcards that seemed to capture the spirit of the place: Bob Walsh's 'The Conservationist' 1978, shows what might be a senior citizen in her Laura Ashley printed dress struggling to confiscate the white paint roller from the overall clad painter responsible for the overhaul. Did I recognise him as one of The Draft? The next postcard is of Piero Manzoni's 'Artist's Shit' / Merda d'artista / Künstlerscheiße. I give all three translations because schoolboys need to know how to develop their vocabulary of international swearwords - use the right one and you can sound like an intellectual or a 'merdera' of the English language. The third postcard is a Bridget Riley painted in 1985 called 'Sidi-Bou-Said'. I'm afraid to speculate on a translation of that title. I checked, it's from Tunisia, but all I remember from the days of the Suez Crisis would get me stoned nowadays. I've left all my swear words from those days in Malta.

Thankfully the British Council Collection upstairs shows another wonderful Riley, but more of that later. The fourth postcard is Gerhard Richter's 1974 piece of or with 4096 colours. I turned away from the shop and there, beyond the invasive film crew, on the entrance wall is Juergen Teller's overblown colour print of David Hockney slouching under a trail of fag ash - that says it all, he will be cremated along with his pack of fags.

I can't delay the issue any longer, it may be premature but I have come to look at the treasures. Isa Genzken must have stolen them along with Ali Baba because I didn't find any. She describes her first piece as Müllberg which translates as a Piece of Rubbish. I didn't need the curator's notes telling me that, I can tell when the lorries from Berlin have been fly-tipping over here. Sometimes great artists die leaving a great work unfinished. Isa Genzken may die leaving a great work unstarted. There was almost nothing of note until a percussive crashing sound had ashen faced attendants arriving at a group of six not dissimilar columns. Two had names like Isa 2000 and Dan 1999. An elderly man was being cared for, brushing down his right shoulder. It was all over the place - the re-named column artistically scattered in pieces looking like 'Sturz 2009'. I can just envisage the headlines: "Butterfly flaps its wings in Beijing, earthquake kills thousands in Sichuan. Berlusconi gets in a flap in NATO Summit, earthquake leave thousands homeless in Italy. Aftershocks felt in Whitechapel Art Gallery opening, thousands still living homeless on London streets."

Too many galleries are set up to look photogenic before the journalists and the hanging committee. But this room looked cluttered even before the chattering classes burst through on the first day of the show. Half a scoop would still have been more than enough.

There is an elegant three legged stool in each room. I recognised them as Artek products from Finland. And I was instantly transported back to the same Whitechapel Art Gallery room when in the Autumn of 1970 there was an exhibition of 'Modern Chairs, 1918-1970', arranged by the Circulation Department of the Victoria and Albert Museum. There were 120 memorable designs.

In forty years time will this Spring 2009 group of exhibitions be remembered, and by whom, and why? I haven't recently seen the doom merchants with their placards in Oxford Street: "The end of the world is nigh".

Skip the next several rooms. Just think of two works entitled 'Fuck the Bauhaus'. I always thought that the Basic Design Course was hugely over-rated, but it would be quite difficult to master fewer skills than those demonstrated in Open, Sesame! This show closes on 21 June. If you can't run along to see it don't worry, you've missed nothing of importance.

Gallery 5 had some local school projects called Archive Adventures. The school website was irritating with pictures lazily tacked down with lumps of masking tape. I don't think Henrietta's mission was dumbing down the workers, quite the opposite. More like enlightenment and an escape route from abject poverty. The kids know all about the hard words like dinosaur, paedophile and chlamydia, but they don't understand technique, craftsmanship, taste and aesthetics. And what are they learning nowadays at the Whitechapel Art Gallery? The wall display had a few interesting photos from the early days. The façade hasn't changed much, but it's all gone queer on the inside. Quite why there should have been a quotation from Gordon Matta-Clark I do not know. It read: "I AM NOW MORE INTERESTED IN THE ACT OF SEARCH AND DISCOVERY THIS ACTIVITY SHOULD BRING ART OUT OF THE GALLERY AND INTO THE SEWERS". (My bold emphasis.)

Gallery 6 showed Minerva Cuevas' 'S Co-Op' (my re-punctuation) about tokens used in lieu of real money. My mother was a member of the Co-Operative, she preferred money every time. But now I see the asylum seekers taking their food coupons to the shops can't get cash change. It reduces the temptation of buying drink and drugs, which drug addicts being released from prison tend to do with their cash lump sum, so ending up straight back in jail.

Gallery 7 displayed joyful modern works purchased by the British Council. It was what people recognised as Art as in an Art Gallery. What a relief. Bravo. The visitors were comfortable and animated in contrast with the sullen and embarrassed silence all through Isa Genzken's dispiriting galleries. (The Politics of Silence?) Ben Nicholson's 'White Relief' of 1935 impressed me today as much as when I saw his work first in Tate Britain. To my surprise I learnt that Michael Craig-Martin curated this room yet his own elegant work was obstructed by the lighting track and the roof beam. It would have deserved to take the place of Chris Ofili's pieces of elephant ordure. Bridget Riley's 'Cataract' is worth a room all of its own. Bridget Riley is worth a complete art gallery of her own. If she'd like me to look after 'Cataract' I will clear space at home, give me five minutes! My friend up the road would like to see it too, she's just had a cataract operation and can see again. In contrast Damien Hirst's 'Apotryptophanae' looks dated and hackneyed beyond its years, too many tranquillisers mate. Anya Gallacio's 'Preserved Beauty' of 2003 with 500 gerbera cut flowers behind a glass screen posed questions about it's structure and durability. Perhaps another visit on the 14th of June will reveal some answers.

The sculptures pretty much filled the floor space and there was little chance to see the pieces with the crowds weaving in and out. Again half a scoop is enough for the art slimmer's diet. Don't Fuck the Bauhaus, when it comes to art Less is More. What do you think Kim?

The café/bar is an Old French mes, just the fitted furniture and the quite bold Bambu furniture conflict and leave little room for circulation. Lucien Freud's models seemed to be having a Sit-In en masse. The menu and prices have nothing to do with the history of the community nor the means of the local working man. I don't think even the Art Luvvies had had lunch in mind. They all look like they have already got indigestion. Something like Wagamama, or a sushi bar, or even Le Pain Quotidien, even a standing only dining system like a pub might get better footfalls. If you want beigels or naan bread then there is plenty outside in Whitechapel. Even a grilled Sainsbury's chicken wing would suffice. A mess of pottage would be more authentic. The Salvation Army soup kitchen is just up the road.

The whole place is an architectural mish-mash. Joining the two buildings together there is a mixture of stripped and sanded parquet floors with butterfly veneered walls and stripped brick walls and floated cement floors. I quite like the bare brick but the prissy veneers on the walls of the Library Dining Room clash with the restored parquet floor. But it will be alright sitting at the table because you will hardly notice the floor. They remind me a bit of school floors with wet sawdust for cleaning.

Downstairs to the toilets there is not such a generous staircase for passing in both directions. In the century that has passed the economical proportions of these once beautiful buildings have no way of accommodating modern ladies-who-lunch-too-much.

Where are we now? Gallery 4, The Whitechapel Boys. Jacob Epstein's bronze bust of Romilly John is delightful. It so wants to be stroked, the hair gently polished. It has survived the test of time, made in 1907 and still fresh and refreshing. For the drawings and paintings on the walls there is competition from the nine huge white spherical lampshades that reflect continually from every glazed surface like Belisha beacons. The small volume 'The Future of Modernism' by John Rodker published in 1925 looks like a book worth reading to get an insight of where art will be in the next century. Now I understand what Gordon Matta-Clark was going on about, substitute skips for sewers and it works for twenty-first century art.

I can't quite say that I gave every single piece my full attention, the Social Sculpture was noticed but with my 'busy lifestyle' in a 'hardworking family' in this 'global recession' I didn't have time to appreciate them all, as well as Ursula Mayer's films. I just switch off when I read words like 'explorations of cinematic convention that play out mesmeric encounters between the artistic and architectural avant gardes.' Last year's Turner Prize exhibition was, well, enough said! The most difficult aspect of time based media is that we have been programmed by television advertisements to expect a conclusion in less than 15 seconds and on the internet if the search engine doesn't reveal a result in three seconds then we go to another page. I can't imagine how I ever tolerated Andy Warhol's monotonous films. Last year's exhibition at the Hayward Gallery was as banal a show as I have seen in a long time and only sufferable as I was in elegant and intelligent company. Last year, also not far from the Whitechapel, I saw a variety of works by Stuart Brisley. His performances in 1972 in London were by far the best I have ever seen. What do you think Sandrine?

And so finally to The Bloomberg Commission. I saw Goshca Macuga's work at Tate Britain in 2008. Some years they simply shouldn't give anyone the prize. I knew pretty much what to expect with all the publicity about the tapestry entitled Guernica. At the Picasso exhibition at the National Gallery there was plenty to see but still some visitors talked about Guernica even though it wasn't on display. It's bizarre, Picasso didn't want to live in Spain and spent his adult life in France. I saw the original painting in Madrid. I've just finished reading François Gilot's autobiography and it's a great antidote to all this obsequiousness regarding Picasso. So here we are again, but it's now a tapestry. I take my hat off to Madame Jacqueline de la Baume Dürrbach for the quality of the tapestry weaving. I don't know how big the team of weavers was but I have watched Marta Rogoyska and Kate Rosson working in the traditional Aubusson technique at the Royal College of Art. I'm quite surprised how brown this weaving looks while I remember the painting as quite grey. Has time and Cuban cigar smoke stained the yarn? Yet the tapestry is still better than the painting. Consign this all to the dustbin of history and someone would still manage to scavenge the tapestry. But please don't generate an industry of exhibition themed tote bags like every other gallery. Just walk down by Toynbee Hall after dark and you'll find bag ladies galore! Hi there, how are you Polly? Nice to see you again. Sorry, I haven't any change.

I don't remember the bright blue curtain in 2003 but I can imagine one. I don't think there is any scientific evidence that Guernica or any number of peace doves have delayed any wars erupting. In the battlefield of Trafalgar Square Ken Livingstone's falcons have done away with the bombing pigeons. What about the urban foxes Ken? You should have listened to the Countryside Alliance.

Even during the Olympic Games in the modern era there have been ongoing wars. Will we be pulled out of Afghanistan before 2012? Ah, it will be an installation called 'Peace Building' by then won't it. Go for it Goshka, go girl go! How many Polish heroes were there during World War Two - pop over to the Polish War Memorial next time you are over in Northolt. I'm sure that Lech Walesa, Solidarnosc (and Pope John Paul II, were he alive) could bring us up to date with the Soviet times. So what has Goshka Macuga contributed this time?

Gallery 2 is large enough but impeded by columns just where you don't want them. Yet it is still a clutter. The tapestry should have been brought in front of the columns, the eight privileged pensioners slumped in the armchairs never moved in all the time I walked around, they reminded me of the wheelchair installation in the cellar at the new Saatchi Gallery, but with batteries run down. They were also too close to the circular table with its own ring of comfy chairs blocking circulation. There were three, just three, headsets available for the film viewing and the carpet, it was wasted at their feet. Why wasn't there a loudspeaker, at low volume, so we could all listen? It coud 'ave been dahnloaded fo' dis-sem-in-a-shun to de iPod gen-er-a-shun.

The sculpture of Colin Powell should have been located rotating in the circular space of the table and there would really be something to talk about. All I overheard was a mother being asked by her young daughter 'What is he holding?' and she off-handedly with a cursory glance answered 'a bullet'. I think it was a chemical phial, weren't we meant to be dealing with weapons of mass destruction. Don't hold your breath waiting for the trial of the murderer of Alexander Litvinenko who had a 'substantial' dose of Polonium-210. It only needed a little phial like Colin Powell was holding? Don't forget Saddam Hussein gassed thousands of innocent Kurds in Halabja in 1988. But the only ones we know about are in nursery rhymes with curds and whey. What is whey mum? Is it like you are getting in my whey? It's alright dear, when you grow up you'll learn that mums and dads don't give you answers for everything. It's sad that Norman King's 1938 leaflets on poster design, banners, typography and script writing look more attractive than Goshka Macuga's newspaper. I'll get a good night's sleep and read it in the morning and see if it is worth the paper it's printed on. Maybe she can cadge a lift with my Polish builder friends, they are heading home for the recession. Oh, you're still there! No, it wasn't worth the paper it's printed on. A new newspaper with nothing new.

It's time to re-appropriate the 1974 Iranian graffiti "Kill Lies All". Try reading it from right to left. Can I bring my embroidery kit and work it into the tapestry?

Well most of the shows are only there for a couple of weeks. But I do look forward to the forthcoming additional exhibitions of the British Council Collection. Oh, I nearly forgot to mention the weather vane by Rodney Graham. I'm not inclined to change my opinions whichever way the wind blows.

It's quite prophetic. I wonder if he trained the horse to walk backwards. I must get a copy of Erasmus's 'The Praise of Folly'. And while I'm at it I'll see if Bob Walsh has more bright ideas like his 'The Conservationist.' If you really want to learn how to do everything properly go down to the new Saatchi Gallery. Even the paintwork of the main hall at Henrietta Barnet School for Girls looks better than this. You could set the girls the task of painting an Homage to Henrietta.

Is the Whitechapel Gallery half-finished, or half-started? Pour me another glass and I'll tell you. We'll know when the graffiti taggers and Banksyites join the Trotskyites and get going with their spray cans on the unfinished walls. The chewing gum brigade is already treading in its masticated art just as they do even in The Tower of London. No, I didn't see a clash of symbols, Waldemar, just the distant clatter of clashing dustbin lids. Does anyone know where I can buy some big blue curtains? Has anyone got Christo and Jeanne-Claude's number, then I can wrap this Whitechapel Art Gallery issue up. They wouldn't have dared open to the public on April Fool's Day.

© Brian Marsh, 5 April 2009 email initiative.cafe@btinternet.com