Adriano Costa

ax-d. us. t

★★★☆☆

On until 13 July 2024

Form triumphs over detritus. Items bought at flea markets, found under the sofa cushion, or rescued from the back of a white van landed in Costa’s studio where they assumed new shapes with the help of a glue gun, some duct tape, and the odd rivet. These tabletop curios with titles like Public vendetta and Slum mania dominate the exhibition. The slight contrasts between their scales, colours, and textures invite questions of their provenance but offer no useful answers, save for the recognition that such junkyard aesthetics has been a contemporary art trope forever.

A different origin story comes with a series of bronze objects that break the exhibition’s rhythm. The bronze casting process calls for materials like plaster or silicone to pour negative voids of the final, positive sculpture. Costa splinters this and rescues the moulds from his workshop’s waste pile. This time, however, doesn’t merely upcycle them for the gallery but casts the voids into bronze positives. This iteration elevates this form of ‘art workshop’ detritus over the other, truly ‘found’ matter.

The gallery text plays up the work’s site specificity. It’s wrong to. Costa’s found objects are specific to only themselves, and even more so when they are the mirrors of their bronze process siblings. This treatment earns their reprieve from the waste compactor’s claw. Why some are more worthy than others is left unexplained.


notes and notices are short and curt exhibition reviews. Read more:

Dickon Drury at Seventeen ★★★☆☆

Dickon Drury

The Preceding Cart & POV: You are Beans

★★★☆☆

Painting needs prophets, Drury plays a jester.

Mike Kelley, Ghost and Sprit at Tate Modern ★★★☆☆

Mike Kelley

Ghost and Spirit

★★★☆☆

The challenge of curating a retrospective of a career as rich as Kelley’s is to build a narrative that both lay audiences and art historians can believe. Wood packs the show and pleases neither fully.  It’s remarkable that any artist’s…

Amilia Graham, The Crust at Scatological Rites of All Nations ★★☆☆☆

Amilia Graham

The Crust

★★☆☆☆

Each show lasts no more than three hours, and it’s bring-your-own booze.

Donna Huddleston, Company at White Cube ★★★★☆

Donna Huddleston

Company

★★★★☆

A palpably stubborn nature unites Huddleston’s women

Aleksandar Denić, The Serbian pavilion in Venice ★★★☆☆

Aleksandar Denić

Exposition Coloniale

★★★☆☆

Denić took the Biennale’s theme literally, as though he was not in on the art world joke.

Roe Etheridge, Happy Birthday Louise Parker II at Gagosian ★★☆☆☆

Roe Etheridge

Happy Birthday Louise Parker II

★★☆☆☆

Etheridge’s method finds an extreme in this tiny pass-by display.

×