Too bele, too gwoka, too clutter?:- Julien Creuzet @ Camden Arts Centre.

"Too blue, too deep, too dark we sank, meandering every moving limb. In the den, in the womb. Too bele, too gwoka, too biguine, too compas, too kadans, too calypso, too mazurka, in my pain joyful sadness (...)

That's the full title of Julien Creuzet's recent exhibition at the Camden Arts Centre and if it confuses you welcome to the club. It confused me too - and the art itself, just one and a half rooms of it, didn't clarify a lot so I had a read of the two introductory boards as you enter the exhibition to see if that could make any sense of what appeared to be a load of old clutter.

Colourful clutter, seemingly artfully arranged even clutter, even - at a push, aesthetically pleasing clutter - but clutter nonetheless. Or, as those aforesaid boards have it, a "multi-disciplinary practice" that "interweaves poetic, sensory and social forms". Well there was some music on quietly in the background - and an invigilator sat quietly reading a book.

Born in a Parisian banlieu in 1986, Creuzet seeks to shine a light of the life experience of those, like him - his family are from Martinique, of the Caribbean diaspora in Europe and show, via relics that have washed ashore, sculptures inspired by the flags of West Indian nations, and references to musical forms from reggae and calypso through to drill, and how this mixture of Caribbean tradition with European modernity, and (I like to think) vice versa, can be beneficial, rewarding, and inspiring but also confusing and, in cases, even divisive.

These all seem like worthwhile aims but, I have to be honest, I'd not have got that from looking at what looked like a selection of brightly coloured clothes horses, unicycles, and toy space rockets. So, instead, I wandered around the gallery at something of a loss thinking "that's a nice colour" or "why has he made that?". 

Even "isn't there something better I could be spending my Sunday doing?" (I did later walk up to Hampstead, then down to Camden via Belsize Park for a tasty chip butty in Poppies so the day wasn't totally wasted). I'm not trying to knock Creuzet's art as much as I'm saying that, without explanations, I didn't understand it.

That's okay. Art doesn't have to be something you understand. It can be something you feel. But, sadly, I felt nothing of importance looking at any this. Not all artists need to be explicitly political but we live in tumultuous times so if you're going to hint at political undercurrents in your work you're going to have to make art that either punches a bit harder or hugs a bit tighter than this. I was the only person, other than that book reading, invigilator looking at this exhibition and that hardly seemed an injustice.

With his stated intentions, I genuinely hope Julien Creuzet goes on to make better work than this. But, for now, in these times, this just doesn't cut it.