Co Westerik

Centenary

★★★★☆

On until 27 January 2024

Anyone intrigued by Philip Guston’s oeuvre but deterred by Tate’s £20 tickets could do worse than Co Westerik as a consolation prize. Many of this Dutch Realist painter’s canvases made between the 1970s and his death in 2018 share the American’s fondness for wrinkled lines, heavenly interventions, and a pallet of social unease. 

Westerik catches his figures in deep contemplation in front of the mirror, in the gynaecologist’s chair, or even mid-orgy. They look innocent but each has much to answer for. The show thus builds an industry of judgment and guilt and, unlike Guston’s whose redemption narrative was crowbarred in by circumstance, damns the viewer along with the painter.


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

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transfeminisms Chapter IV at Mimosa House ★☆☆☆☆

transfeminisms Chapter IV: Care and Kinship

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Justin Fitzpatrick, Ballotta at Seventeen ★★★★★

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★★★★★

The reward for taking part in this experiment of life is ascension to the holy orders. 

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