You may be familiar with Pop Art or Op Art. You may even know a lot about NO!art. But you’ve likely never heard of Not Art, because, as far as I can tell, I’m just now inventing it.
Not Art describes images, objects and assemblages created without artistic intent that would nevertheless, in a formalized context, pass for art. In other words, if you can imagine credulously viewing such an item in a gallery, it’s Not Art.
Litterbugs obliviously pooling their trash into a powerful found-object collage is Not Art. Pedestrians absently scuffing a painted metal sidewalk panel into a studded chrome skin blotted with blue and red abstractions is Not Art. Work crews constructing and installing a Brutalist metal-beaked concrete drainage basin is Not Art. Custodians casually sanding or painting Rothko-esque swatches to remove or cover graffiti is Not Art.
An obvious if vexing question remains: Is Not Art art? The nomenclature suggests both that it is and it isn’t, which is why, in my own uncertainty, I chose it.
Maybe, after analyzing these examples spotted around New Haven, you can tell me.
Written and photographed by Dan Mims. Image features a litter collage in a planter outside The Place 2 Be.
