I AM a big fan of the Tate Modern and a fairly regular visitor. There has been some marvellous stuff there – and quite a lot of rubbish as well. But then that’s art for you and at least it generates some ‘interesting’ discussions.

So I was delighted to see a plan unveiled last week to turn the former High Wycombe library into a modernist art gallery, but is the town ready to step into the world of the surreal?

I ask the question because a couple of weeks ago we carried a piece in Midweek marking ten years of the Whirligig, a controversial sculpture that hangs over an alleyway in the town centre.

When we questioned shoppers it prompted artistic responses such as: “I’d never noticed it until you pointed it out.”

So I would like to propel you forward five years when the old library has been converted into the Chapter gallery and is full of modernist art. Here we listen in on a discussion between two people as they view the works brought together to present an evocative view of Wycombe life.

Osbert Ranklehopp, art critic, surveying a pool of oily water with an eddy that has plastic bottles and crisp packets spinning endlessly round a half submerged fridge: “Here you have formal elements of society that are captured to create a seamless stream of our urban life.”

Jack Barnpole, High Wycombe Philistine; “Looks like the Rye after a Saturday night.”

Osbert, gazing at a black door covered in lurid day-glo symbols and half hanging off a wooden, partly scorched frame: “This is most interesting. The artist has used bright and dark colours and a half open door to create a mystical aspect of the things that tie us into our suburban community.”

Jack: “I recognise that graffiti. It’s the door off a mate’s garden shed in Micklefield that got burnt down by vandals.”

Osbert: standing in front of a huge framed picture with pieces of paper protruding from a mix of black molasses and treacle that glints under a single light: “Now here the artist is creating a stunning visual relationship between the almost semi-sacred substance that binds our community together, but brings out our strivings to be individualistic.”

Jack: peering very closely at the work: “Hey look at that, it’s a speeding ticket someone got on Marlow Hill.”

Osbert: on arriving in the main hall where he is confronted by large structure of ironworks, tubes, pipes and holes in the floor: “Now this is an awe-inspiring sculpture. Despite the unyielding material there is an essence of the lyrical about the shapes, but there you have the black holes sucking up light. The whole thing speaks about the ebb and flow of our community’s dreams and disappointments.”

Jack: “Well blow me down, I wondered what the council had done with the Frogmoor fountain.

“I tell you what Osbert, never mind this rubbish, let me take you somewhere that captures the desire we have to break free of the gravity that binds our emotions in a rational way and embraces a surreal, almost fluid element.”

Osbert: “What?”

Jack: “Let’s go and have a pint at the Hobgoblin.”