Alexis Kyle Mitchell

The Goal of Our Health

★★☆☆☆

On until 2 August 2025

Kyle Mithell’s image archive would make Adam Curtis’ heart sing. Contextless, charged views of people and systems, toned with that pale hue of ‘archive’ give the impression that something profound is extracted from the reels, tapes, and screen-grabs the artists set to Luke Fowler’s ominous soundtrack. 

But her hour-long meditation on health, care, and disability – wrapped in musings on the nature of film – feels more like a PhD-by-practice submission than BBC iPlayer fodder, let alone the contents of an art exhibition. The video’s plot is so dense that it takes six pages of writing to explain what connects Zoom movement workshops and the fact that urine, apparently, makes for a decent film developer solution.

There is some tenderness to the edit, but it hides under poorly articulated complaints and a cliché warning against eugenics. When even Curtis has stopped narrating his ‘documentaries’, some stories are wasted breath.


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

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.

Riar Rizaldi, Mirage at Gasworks ★★★☆☆

Riar Rizaldi

Mirage

★★★☆☆

When an artist thinks he’s understood quantum mechanics, he doesn’t. How will he know if he knows god?

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.

Gabriel Hartley, Floorlines at Seventeen ★★★★★

Gabriel Hartley

Floorlines

★★★★★

Desire breeds introspection. Desire breeds mistrust.

Your Ghosts Are Mine at Palazzo Franchetti ★★★☆☆

Your Ghosts Are Mine: Expanded Cinemas, Amplified Voices

★★★☆☆

This attempt at building pan-Arabic film aesthetics falls prey to the art technician’s trickery.

Atiéna R Kilfa, Primitive Tales, at Cabinet ★☆☆☆☆

Atiéna R. Kilfa

Primitive Tales

★☆☆☆☆

An uninspired re-staging of the artist’s Camden Arts Centre show.

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