Botond Keresztesi

NPC (No-one Paints Chrysopoeia)

★★★☆☆

On until 26 October 2024

Keresztesi’s ornate paintings are taxing on the imagination. In one, mechanical horses meet crying cyborgs. In another, emotional factory robots wistfully look over a horizon on fire. That could be enough but there is no “too much” in this fantasy meme game. Next, gilded clowns laugh at the weather. Crystal castles crumble in the wind. Oh, and the gallery’s walls are turned into clouds.

Ironic Art Nouveau is Seventeen’s premium brand of opulence. Keresztesi doesn’t hold back when mixing it with early Deviantart forum sci-fi and traces of late Surrealism for good measure. He speaks of alchemy as he does so, albeit more obliquely than the gallery would have him. It is not easy to discern from the canvases alone whether this practice is borne of biological dystopia or a blind breed of techno-optimism. There is not quite enough paint on their surface to split this final difference.


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

Place Revisited at Modern Art ★★★★☆

Richard Aldrich, Prunella Clough, Masanori Tomita, Anh Trần, Terry Winters

Place Revisited

★★★★☆

One suspects the gallery of insider trading.

Aziza Kadyri, the Uzbekistan pavilion in Venice ★★★★☆

Aziza Kadyri

Don't Miss the Cue

★★★★☆

This dissonance might be intentional. If it isn’t, so much for the better.

Bruno Zhu, License to Live at Chisenhale ★☆☆☆☆

Bruno Zhu

License to Live

★☆☆☆☆

Faced with so little, one longs for an even emptier room.

Haegue Yang, Leap Year at Hayward Gallery ★★☆☆☆

Haegue Yang

Leap Year

★★☆☆☆

The funfair is shuttered, long live the fair.

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

Nikita Gale

Blur Ballad

★★☆☆☆

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

Bitch Magic at Alma Pearl ★★★☆☆

Renate Bertlmann, Cullinan Richards, Ayla Dmyterko, Permindar Kaur, Rebecca Parkin, Tai Shani, Penny Slinger, Georgina Starr, Unyimeabasi Udoh

Bitch Magic

★★★☆☆

There will be no women when this spell breaks. And no need for magic, either.

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