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:

Maso Nakahara: Floating Through Time at Pippy Houldsworth ★★★★☆

Maso Nakahara

Floating Through Time

★★★★☆

Biblical floods, the comet’s fall, and the odd tsunami mercilessly toss Nakahara’s protagonists about.

Auudi Dorsey at PM/AM ★★★★☆

Auudi Dorsey

★★★★☆

Dorsey records the human experience with the true universalism of paint.

Alexandre Canonico, Still at Ab Anbar ★★★☆☆

Alexandre Canonico

Still

★★★☆☆

Conanico’s slight structures look like they could take flight at any moment.

The Music is Black at V&A East ★★☆☆☆

The Music is Black: A British Story

★★☆☆☆

Can there be a “black British music” without Britain or blackness?

Nick Relph, Fils, ta vision! at Herald St ★☆☆☆☆

Nick Relph

Fils, ta vision!

★☆☆☆☆

There’s little for the eye to hang on and none of the punk culture of Relph’s earlier practice emerges from the works.

Tacita Dean: Black, Green, Green and White at Frith Street Gallery ★☆☆☆☆

Tacita Dean

Black, Green, Green and White

★☆☆☆☆

Film studies lost to mobile video; Dean phones it in.

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