Christopher Aque, Alexandre Khondji

★★★★★

On until 18 February 2024

Despite consisting of only three works, this exhibition is the gallery equivalent of a cryptic crossword. Aque’s photographic diptychs marry views of sea waves at the shore with candid street photographs of men. The colours have faded, as though in cheap holiday snapshots from the 1970s. But that clue is a decoy: the men wear this decade’s casual summer attire. The knee-to-breast close-ups which centre on the men’s groins invite closer inspection and thus lay a false trail of desire in the puzzler’s mind. More hints appear in a sideways glance because while one of the men comfortably sports a wedding ring, the other precariously fidgets with his.

Khondji’s flood barrier installation, the type of steel and rubber construction familiar from Venice, cuts the room in half. The scale and material of this object contrast so starkly with the street scenes and scents of Aque’s portraits that it cues an escape to the beach, paradoxically the origin of the peril, earlier overlooked by the clue-hunter. Finally, the eye finds the solution in the weight of the water and the destructive forces of sex. Aesthetic cognition or crossword puzzles only rarely bring such perverse pleasure.


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

Choon Mi Kim, ACID—FREEEE at Ginny on Frederick ★☆☆☆☆

Choon Mi Kim

ACID—FREEEE

ACID—FREEEE

★☆☆☆☆

Some forms of abstraction simply scream ‘my kid could have made that’.

Sosa Joseph, Pennungal at David Zwirner ★★★★★

Sosa Joseph

Pennungal: Lives of women and girls

Pennungal: Lives of women and girls

★★★★★

The night, finally, recognises despair and witnesses infanticide.”

Marina Abramović, 7 Deaths of Maria Callas ★☆☆☆☆

Marina Abramović

7 Deaths of Maria Callas

7 Deaths of Maria Callas

★☆☆☆☆

Abramović wants to destroy all performance and all women until she holds the monopoly over stage death.

Pope.L, Hospital at South London Gallery ★★★☆☆

Pope.L

Hospital

Hospital

★★★☆☆

This project lands in the joke section of Animal Farm and not as a prophecy of the Jan 6th insurrection.

Joseph Awuah-Darko, How is your day going? at Ed Cross ★★☆☆☆

Joseph Awuah-Darko

How is your day going?

How is your day going?

★★☆☆☆

This project relies on layers of gimmicks and, sadly, they show through Awuah-Darko’s thick palette knife impasto.

Herman Chong, The Book of Equators at Amanda Wilkinson ★★☆☆☆

Herman Chong

The Book of Equators

The Book of Equators

★★☆☆☆

Chong was probably reading some epic while painting his Equator pictures.

×