Cynthia Hawkins

Maps Necessary for a Walk in 4D: Chapter 4

★★★☆☆

On until 1 November 2025

Context is everything, as a judge once proclaimed. That context might need contexts, too, and Hawkins says her canvases throw back to some others, which, in turn, root their ideas in an event now too distant to recall. The verdict? Nice story, but it’s nonsense. Hawkins’s wet paint abstractions – colour washes straight out of the tube, unmixed – transparently overplay reference and recall. Painter’s tape and oil bars – what is being tied to what here? – make for barely circumstantial evidence. Left to her own devices, Hawkins (whose work, in company, was a highlight in the Condo jumble programme) reveals that her studio was no crime scene. 


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

Calla Henkel & Max Pitegoff, I.W. Payne, Downtown at 243 Luz ★★★★☆

Calla Henkel & Max Pitegoff, I.W. Payne

Downtown

★★★★☆

This project has no room for breath and even less for context.

Florian Meisenberg, What does the smoke know of the fire? at Kate MacGarry, ★★★★☆

Florian Meisenberg

What does the smoke know of the fire?

★★★★☆

Meisenberg’s paintings are either the product of a conspiracy or documents of a conspiracy theory.

Max Boyla, Crying like a fire in the sun at Workplace ★★☆☆☆

Max Boyla

Crying like a fire in the sun

★★☆☆☆

Rothko’s abstractions are said to have induced tears in viewers overwhelmed by abstraction. Staring at the sun here, however, barely causes blindness.

Lara Favaretto at Biblioteca Marciana in Venice ★☆☆☆☆

Lara Favaretto

★☆☆☆☆

Burning the art student’s undergraduate essays won’t solve the problem.

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.

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

Choon Mi Kim

ACID—FREEEE

★☆☆☆☆

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

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