Pierre d'Alancaisez

Andreas Angelidakis

Escape Room

Greek pavilion, Venice

★★☆☆☆

On until 22 November 2026

Is Greece ok? Their pavilions of late have been dingy and gloomy, casting the motherland itself as a dark den. Emerging from it is increasingly doubtful. Angelidakis’s Escape Room stages Plato’s cave for “the current political climate”, where the shadows are Hitler, and Trump holds the keys. Maybe Greek love is the salvation! (Or something.)

Angelidakis mixes nightclub, 4chan, HIV, and MAGA imagery, casting the visitor as the confounding video silhouette. Greece is half-dungeon, half beautiful ruin, all narcissistic psychosexual babble ignorant of its history. This lair might be fun to dance in to Make Plato’s Cave Great Again. But is that a civics lesson?

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

Leonardo Drew, Ubiquity II at South London Gallery ★★☆☆☆

Leonardo Drew

Ubiquity II

★★☆☆☆

There are many ways to misunderstand entropy.

Iris Touliatou, Outfits at PEER ★★★☆☆

Iris Touliatou

Outfits

★★★☆☆

These gestures remind the gallery that it is a social space. Unfortunately, they also inadvertently point to its sorry end.

Anish Kapoor at Hayward Gallery ★★☆☆☆

Anish Kapoor

★★☆☆☆

Pity the artist looking for the abyss IRL.

Abbas Akhavan: Entre chien et loup at the Canadian pavilion in Venice ★★★☆☆

Abbas Akhavan

Entre chien et loup

★★★☆☆

Some water lily species are invasive.

Celia Hempton, Transplant at Phillida Reid ★★★☆☆

Celia Hempton

Transplant

★★★☆☆

Sense finally returns only outside the gallery.

Soufiane Ababri, Their mouths at Barbican ★★☆☆☆

Soufiane Ababri

Their mouths were full of bumblebees

★★☆☆☆

Ababri’s paintings for the Grindr generation are more cartoonish than they are from life.

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