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:

Marina Abramović, 7 Deaths of Maria Callas ★☆☆☆☆

Marina Abramović

7 Deaths of Maria Callas

★☆☆☆☆

Abramović wants to destroy all performance and all women until she holds the monopoly over stage death.

Yi To, Terminal Lucidity at Project Native Informant ★★★★☆

Yi To

Terminal Lucidity

★★★★☆

All evidence erodes eventually.

Tarek Lakhrissi, Spit at Nicoletti ★★★☆☆

Tarek Lakhrissi

Spit

★★★☆☆

Writing poetry is hard enough.

Nick Relph, Fils, ta vision! at Herald St ★☆☆☆☆

Nick Relph

Fils, ta vision!

★☆☆☆☆

There’s little for the eye to hang on and none of the punk culture of Relph’s earlier practice emerges from the works.

Machine Painting at Modern Art ★★★★☆

Machine Painting

★★★★☆

Ask DALL-E to paint an abstraction and it’ll confidently produce a museum-worthy clone

Helen Johnson, Opening at Pilar Corrias ★☆☆☆☆

Helen Johnson

Opening

★☆☆☆☆

This is the work of a mind that, having needlessly spent years in therapy, became hooked on ennui or of an artist who wasted time misreading Lacan.

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