Anna Glantz

Lichens

★★★☆☆

On until 16 December 2023

If there is a logic to these seven paintings, Glantz makes it hard to believe. In one, half of a bright-eyed, middle-aged woman poses with a handbag and… half of a duck. One is a landscape within a landscape, and Glantz paints in a coffee cup to remind the eye that its job is to think. Another could have been a still life with fruit, but something obscures most of the scene, suggesting a more intense affair right behind. There’s also a closer portrait of another woman, this one with no gimmick. It matches the others only in its palette of lichen greens and beiges and the sparse application of paint.

Despite the purposeful distractions, each of these images commands attention. But their assembly is unsatisfying. The clues that Glantz leaves on her surfaces are also traps. There are either too many or not quite enough to follow or fall into. 


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

The Poplar Bestiary at Tondo Cosmic ★★★☆☆

Tamsin Morse, Kris Lock, Casper Scarth, et al.

The Poplar Bestiary

★★★☆☆

This menagerie comes with no humanly comprehensible challenge.

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

Leonardo Drew

Ubiquity II

★★☆☆☆

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Christine Ay Tjoe, Lesser Numerator at White Cube ★★☆☆☆

Christine Ay Tjoe

Lesser Numerator

★★☆☆☆

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Yoko Ono at Tate ★★★☆☆

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Music of the Mind

★★★☆☆

This show will sell tickets. But it won’t change the weather.

Urs Fischer, Scratch & Sniff at Sadie Coles ★★★☆☆

Urs Fischer

Scratch & Sniff

★★★☆☆

It’s too early for a funeral, yet there’s no other reprieve in this commodity cult.

RM, A Story Backwards at Auto Italia ★★☆☆☆

RM

A Story Backwards

★★☆☆☆

Having forgotten what the ‘dramatic’ in art stands for, visual artists today too often mistake hacked theory for stage directions.

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