A pile of bricks from a bad artist is just a pile of bricks, it is also still not art.
Why is it not art? It expresses meaning even if it does so in a convoluted/pretentious/untalented/etc way.
I'm of the view that most (if not all) material culture expresses meaning above its purely practical function, the incorporation of that expression into the object is the performance of art. It might not be the formalised art that you see in arty-farty galleries, but it is an expression of the person creating it. Of course, whether it is from individual or social agency is another matter entirely.
A pile of shoes in Auschwitz is thought provoking, but it is not art.
But it wasn't intended to be - the shoes were not piled there to convey a message or to provoke thought. But if a photographer takes a picture, or an artist paints a picture, of the pile and then displays in in a show about the holocaust is it art then? Wherein lies the art?
Did the girl that won the School of Art competition have any talent whatsoever? The piece was certainly the most interesting and striking of the finalists but all she did was get the council to move it to the gallery.
I think that the problem is that none of us can supply a universal definition of what art is, so one man's masterpiece is always going to be another's crappy unmade bed, pile of bricks, log on a fence, etc. Back to John Humphreys and his cow.