The non-art project 1971: notes on the emergence of experimental studies at Brighton Polytechnic

This article outlines and considers the emergence of (fine art) Experimental Studies at Brighton Polytechnic in 1971, as part of the art school modernisations after the Coldstream Report of 1960. Research, to date, suggests this was the first and maybe the longest-running experimental fine art media course in the UK. The photographic works of artists John Hilliard and Roger Cutforth are discussed as they taught the early years of the course, and Roger Cutforth’s work The Non-Art Project (1970–1971), an offsite project and small black and white photobook gives this article its title. The term non-art, as a category in art history is explored along with Information (Kynaston McShine, MOMA 1970), and both are suggested as an important underpinning for the emergence of Experimental Studies, which became Fine Art Critical Practice (FACP) and was run out to form a general fine art course 2020–2022. The end of the paper looks at a particular FACP student degree show from 2015 which resembles some noteworthy curatorial work of Roger Cutforth from 1971. This visual coincidence is taken as a marker – not of deliberate reference, but of a tradition that can still be used with agency and aesthetic purpose by later generations.