Sacred and profane: what Warhol and Chaucer tell us about the huge royal queue | Jonathan Jones

I went to see it and learned why so many are waiting for a sanctified moment. Who needs performance art when you can step into history?

The end of the queue, on a cloudy evening by the Thames, was a disappointment. It was hard to tell the pilgrims from people just leaving work or heading for a night out. Gradually, as I traced it past the Golden Hinde in its dry dock and the Clink prison, the relaxed procession became more substantial and packed. Yet it still seemed different from the stories being told about it.

The British love a queue, say US media reports, and this is supposedly the queue to end all queues, the Mother of Queues. Social-media posts purporting to come from the queue say much the same thing, some suggesting it’s a queue for its own sake, even a collective work of art. But a queue is basically a disciplined attempt to get somewhere a lot of people want to be. And at first glance this could be a queue for the latest phone or a gig – except much less intense.

Jonathan Jones writes on art for the Guardian

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