Carla Åhlander, Aaron Amar Bhamr

Holding Places

★★★☆☆

On until 27 September 2024

Despite their formal simplicity, Åhlander’s photographs can build an atmosphere. It’s late summer at the family’s lake holiday cottage. The sun shines through the curtains, the building creaks in the breeze, and lunch will be ready soon. Together with the gallery’s fit-out – of brass trimmings, dark carpet, mirrors – the illusion is as good as complete. 

Then Amar Bhamr’s art handler’s readymade breaks it, hard, revealing the whole scene to be make-believe. But not before this artist, too, litters the floor with traces of the season’s turn, thus showing himself to be as sentimental as the rest of us. 


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

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.

Hannah Tilson, Soft Cut at Cedric Bardawil ★★☆☆☆

Hannah Tilson

Soft Cut

★★☆☆☆

Tilson’s styled self-portraits are an affectation that will take many years of practice to pay off.

Michael Simpson at Modern Art ★★★★☆

Michael Simpson

★★★★☆

In this meditation of surface disguised as a study of objects, neither is a truer likeness of the events.

Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum, It Will End In Tears at Barbican Curve ★★☆☆☆

Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum

It Will End In Tears

★★☆☆☆

With the right lighting, this story could be a mid-century colonial classic.

Donna Huddleston, Company at White Cube ★★★★☆

Donna Huddleston

Company

★★★★☆

A palpably stubborn nature unites Huddleston’s women

Xie Nanxing, Hello, Portrait! at Thomas Dane ★★★★☆

Xie Nanxing

Hello, Portrait!

★★★★☆

Looking at Xie’s portraits is a little like wearing a virtual reality headset over only one eye.

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