Yes, But is it Art?

When I was at art college, I considered ‘artists’ to be a pretty odd bunch – I can say that because I didn’t consider myself to be one of them; I was a ‘designer’ which was a whole different kettle of fish. It appeared to me that art, back then in the late 80’s, consisted of collecting small quantities of bodily juices of varying degrees of unpleasantness, putting them in small containers and displaying them to a backdrop of screams and whimpers. Of course, that might be a little bit of a generalisation; there was also shoes nailed to walls, black and white semi naked self portraits and various daubing and scribbling, normally presented with an alarming soundtrack of bangs and yauping. Any idea of pictorialism, or indeed technical skill, seemed to have been largely rejected and replaced with shock and awe. Thankfully the balance seems to have been re-addressed in the years that have followed to some extent, with artistic skill making something of a comeback.