I met up with my brother this morning to go to the Anish Kapoor exhibition at Modern Art Oxford just before it closes at the weekend. The visceral, troubling sculptures and paintings weren't at all what either of us expected. 

We both independently decided within moments of going in that we didn't need to know the titles of the pieces, and there being no commentary increased their impact. 

Although you might just have been able to pretend they were semi-abstract they were -  from what were probably the interiors of bodies to what was probably the earth erupting - violent and unsettling. Red and black, blood and earth.

Over my years as a naive viewer of art, three criteria of achievement have emerged for me:
- it is technically skilled
- it makes me think or feel
- it is aesthetically pleasing.

This exhibition is making me rethink aesthetics. I feel slightly toppled.

It made me wonder what it must be like to be a gallery warder in an exhibition like this, living with the same pieces of powerful work every day for months. I spoke to one of them who I know and he told me that one viewer had fainted.

We lasted not much more than 30 minutes before retreating via the calming playfulness of the Story Museum (blip) to coffee and conversation.