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:

Justin Fitzpatrick, Ballotta at Seventeen ★★★★★

Justin Fitzpatrick

Ballotta

★★★★★

The reward for taking part in this experiment of life is ascension to the holy orders. 

Merike Estna: The House of Leaking Sky at the Estonian pavilion, Venice ★★☆☆☆

Merike Estna

The House of Leaking Sky

★★☆☆☆

A racket not useful for sport.

Yo Nishimura: Dislocation at Sadie Coles ★☆☆☆☆

Yo Nishimura

Dislocation

★☆☆☆☆

Dislocation was once the stuff of excitement. Today, it barely recognises its own homelessness.

Odoteres Ricardo de Ozias at David Zwirner ★★★☆☆

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★★★☆☆

These images are perfectly charming even to a viewer possessed of a cold anthropological eye. The troubling part is in realising just how far ‘outside’ the ideas are.

Robert Rauschenberg, ROCI at Thaddeus Ropac ★★★☆☆

Robert Rauschenberg

ROCI

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This project outs Rauschenberg as a propagandist if not an outright Fed.

Official. Unofficial. Belarus in Venice ★★☆☆☆

Belarus Free Theatre

Official. Unofficial.

★★☆☆☆

Art matters neither to the dictator nor his opponents.

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