It's Good but is it Art?

Launching the show for 6 provocative weeks from early November 2006, Greg McGee said "Basically we're unleashing different genres from different Yorkshire artists and letting each piece of work vie like cultural sumo wrestlers for the title of Art - with a capital 'A', see. Or a capital 'F', depending on your point of view. You'll see what we mean when you pop in for a browse. Be prepared to be challenged, tickled, irritated, offended - all in one show."

The commercial success of the previous exhibition, 'Colour!', enabled The ArtSpace to "enjoy a bit of risk taking with this one."

"Indonesian artist Tato sold well, Kalindi sold well, and goth-meister David Ketley's Whitby prints of sweaty Captain Jack Sparrow sold better than Betty's tea cakes all summer," said fellow owner Ails Denholm. "So 'It's Good But...' is our Kid A, our experimental album before our poppier exhibitions to fuinish off the year."

Inspiration for the autumn exhibition came from a conversation between Ails and Rachael Chapman, head of marketting at York Theatre Royal, where Reza's play Art ran from October to November.

"'Yes, but is it Art' is a cliched question, often asked by frowning families or couples as they visit an art gallery once every half decade, but it's a valid question as there is often so much shite hanging on walls", said Greg, "Reza's play, with its storyline of Serge buying a blank canvas for 200,000 francs and then showing it off to his irritated friends, adds to the age old debate, and it seemed to us a serendipitous time to synchronise our own look at the question."

"It's an eclectic exhibition," said Ails, "It's like the Village People - there's something for everyone!"

From York came Ludvigsen's seascapes and his new "Copy of a Burne-Jones, along with Baz Ward's pictures of Staithes. From further afield came Amrik Varkalis with enchanting oil scapes. Peak District man Anthony Ratcliffe exhibited large woodcut prints, hand printed in numerous colours.

Among the less traditional artists, conceptual minimalist Rob Collins unveiled his thrillingly austere reproduction of Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophocus, and York artist Nell depicted her highly stylised femininity. Notorious cultural sloganeer Dexter resurrected the divisive public notice, 'No Coloureds', once displayed in the windows of hotels and bed and breakfast premises in York and elsewhere in the Fifties and Sixties and now recreated on casrdboard in thick brown print. "The sign will be hanging on the toilet door of The ArtSpace, asking you to examine your own reaction: Is it Art or Bollocks?" said Greg.