Alexandre Canonico

Still

★★★☆☆

On until 16 December 2023

Conanico’s assemblages of shapes cut out of card and MDF board are so simple and playful that it would be easy to overlook them. Spray-painted rectangles connect to other rectangles like in a Blue Peter project. Curved shapes bear loads of miniature skyscrapers. Screws and washers hold a school science project together. These illustrations are each diagrams for something but to ask what is to miss the joke.

Such work could claim a place in the tradition of geometric abstraction but because Conanico doesn’t confine his paper cuttings to a canvas, or any plain for that matter, he overcomes it. His slight structures look like they could take flight at any moment and, in so doing, alter the fundamental laws of the universe. The sinister afterimage of such action, only barely implied by the work, would complete the show.


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

Christo, Early Works at Gagosian Open ★★★★☆

Christo

Early Works

★★★★☆

To appreciate Christo’s early works against his wishes, one must forget his later stunts.

Trevor Yeung, Hong Kong in Venice ★★★☆☆

Trevor Yeung

Courtyard of Attachments

★★★☆☆

This fishbowl universe is easy sea comfort but ultimately no sushi.

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.

Stephen Willats, Time Tumbler at Victoria Miro

Stephen Willats

Time Tumbler

★★★★☆

Willats orders fragments of time, matter, and space into data packets on one side of the flow chart and puts them to use on the other.

Eva Kot’átková, The Czech pavilion in Venice ★★☆☆☆

Eva Kot’átková

The heart of a giraffe in captivity is twelve kilos lighter

★★☆☆☆

The giraffe’s taxidermied corpse is host to an ideological stunt.

Max Boyla, Crying like a fire in the sun at Workplace ★★☆☆☆

Max Boyla

Crying like a fire in the sun

★★☆☆☆

Rothko’s abstractions are said to have induced tears in viewers overwhelmed by abstraction. Staring at the sun here, however, barely causes blindness.

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