Outside(r Not) Art

A bit over a year ago I went to a show at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art (part of Oxford University) and was surprised and disappointed to find nothing that engaged or inspired me. On Friday a young colleague showed me some really impressive paintings done by her sister who has just been accepted for a degree course there and I was encouraged. So when I happened yesterday to be cycling past the large green shed on the industrial estate that’s housing this year’s degree show I thought I’d go in.
 
Oh dear. I really tried to engage with the volcanic video-game landscape, the pipe dripping turquoise water, the holes that someone had hacksawed in the plasterboard wall and the other things that have since slipped from my mind but… I couldn’t.  There was nothing that moved me, nothing that made me think, no artistic technique I could admire. I came out feeling very flat.
 
I livened up just outside when I saw these shapes in the evening sun but in the end something much more significant became yesterday’s blip. Bizarrely – it’s not on my usual route anywhere – I was passing again this evening, so here it is. A monument to Not Art.
 
The pretentious title of this blip is entirely my own work.


In case you think this is an anti-conceptual art rant, it's not. I've seen lots that has made a difference to me.