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:

Dayanita Singh at Frith Street Gallery ★★☆☆☆

Dayanita Singh

★★☆☆☆

Singh’s pictures cold have been made by at least three other Frith Street artists.

Jenny Saville: The Anatomy of Painting at National Portrait Gallery ★★★☆☆

Jenny Saville

The Anatomy of Painting

★★★☆☆

There is no trace of the visceral in Saville’s gentle pencil studies, for example.

I’m so gay for you at Miłość ★★☆☆☆

I'm so gay for you

★★☆☆☆

This “celebration of queerness” is no orgy

Calla Henkel & Max Pitegoff, I.W. Payne, Downtown at 243 Luz ★★★★☆

Calla Henkel & Max Pitegoff, I.W. Payne

Downtown

★★★★☆

This project has no room for breath and even less for context.

Willie Doherty, Remnant at Matt’s Gallery ★★★☆☆

Willie Doherty

Remnant

★★★☆☆

Doherty’s tragipoetic timing can be masterly.

Armando D. Cosmos, Nothing New Under the Sun at Phillida Reid ★★★☆☆

Armando D. Cosmos

Nothing New Under the Sun

★★★☆☆

Cosmos wants to redefine STEM as the alliance of science, theosophy, engineering, and myth.

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