All Is Not Lost

This exhibition, in what is quite a small gallery space, actually looks more like a cluttered area where builders are doing something. There are bits of furniture, an old trolley, things hanging from the walls: a lot of the stuff here could have come out of a skip, and it could soon be destined to go in a skip again soon. It is a strange collection with a strange commentary to go with it. The artist imagines that the viewer will see all sorts of things here, but I can't see much in it. The commentary suggests that a bit of DIY filler has a kind of life of its own and that people will be wondering what it may do next. I don't get it. It is a little squidge of dried-up filler sitting on a chair. It's not doing anything - OR IS IT?! The artist, I believe, thinks that the filler is depriving the chair of its proper function, emasculating it in some way, since we can't use the chair for its original purpose, you see, with this little tapeworm of tangled filler on it. Oh! The chairmanity!

Another piece is the base of a home made table, slightly bodged. Here we are supposed to feel things about failure, loss and potential for change - or so the guide says. We may be pessimistic or optimistic about this half-made, topless (bereft?) table base: another inanimate thing which somehow has had its function denied it. I feel non-plussed. I am not moved by it in any particular way. I look around at the other few pieces and think the same - this is giving conceptual art a bad name. Good luck to the Old Fire Station in finding a decent follow up to this - I doubt it will be hard to beat!

mike paul (Unverified), 19/06/12