Auudi Dorsey

★★★★☆

On until 18 January 2024

Since the 2020 US racial reckoning, curators and critics in the UK have unthinkingly imported American tensions only to confound England’s already fragile interplay of class and ethnicity. The political value of such activism is still to be seen. Its aesthetic effects, however, have been devastating on both sides of the Atlantic.

The London exhibition of the New Orleans painter Auudi Dorsey’s portraits of his black, working-class neighbours could signal the turning in this morose trend. His works show a female parking attendant who chews gum as she writes a ticket, two restaurant chefs on break from the kitchen, an off-duty construction worker, and a middle-aged angler with his implausibly large catch. 

Dorsey’s acrylics brim with dignity. The subjects’ faces betray signs of daily fatigue, but their stance is secure. That the canvases are rendered in sombre blue and green hues, as in a dark cop drama, is the one clue that other narratives could fit in these lives. Even the curator’s essay barely points to the reductive race-first reading of what is already evident by the artist’s hand. This leaves Dorsey to record the human experience with the true universalism of paint.


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

Peter Fischli and David Weiss at Sprüth Magers ★★★★☆

Peter Fischli and David Weiss

★★★★☆

A police procedural turns into a drinking game of Foucauldian power analysis.

Botond Keresztesi, NPC (No-one Paints Chrysopoeia) at Seventeen ★★★☆☆

Botond Keresztesi

NPC (No-one Paints Chrysopoeia)

NPC (No-one Paints Chrysopoeia)

NPC (No-one Paints Chrysopoeia)

★★★☆☆

There is no “too much” in this fantasy meme game.

Nikita Gale, Blur Ballad at Emalin ★★☆☆☆

Nikita Gale

Blur Ballad

Blur Ballad

Blur Ballad

★★☆☆☆

Even though the show brings together a few unusual tricks, they are disjointed and leave little for the eye to linger on.

Open Group, The Polish pavilion in Venice ★★★☆☆

Open Group

Repeat After Me II

Repeat After Me II

Repeat After Me II

★★★☆☆

The applause was rapturous. A sense of tragedy, however, was altogether missing.

Lutz Bacher, AYE! at Raven Row ★★★★☆

Lutz Bacher

AYE!

AYE!

AYE!

★★★★☆

There’s joy in repetition. There’s joy in repetition. There’s joy in repetition. There’s joy in repetition. There’s joy in repetition. There’s joy in repetition.

Dickon Drury at Seventeen ★★★☆☆

Dickon Drury

The Preceding Cart & POV: You are Beans

The Preceding Cart & POV: You are Beans

The Preceding Cart & POV: You are Beans

★★★☆☆

Painting needs prophets, Drury plays a jester.

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