Deimantas Narkevičus

The Fifer

★★☆☆☆

On until 18 February 2024

What connects mystical runes, sublime sounds, hypernatural birds, and the very middle of Europe? Wrong answers only, as the meme goes, because “nothing” is obvious. Narkevičius’ constellation of sculpture, photography, and sound installation, topped for good measure with a 3D film gimmick, pulls in too many directions. 

This luck-of-the-draw curating is unsatisfying and disruptively confusing. It forces the eye to find comfort in the Lithuanian’s already familiar and predictable 1997 video on “the post-Soviet era”. This modest work, lightly twitching the Iron Curtain, inadvertently becomes a centrepiece. In the age of the decolonial, this is as quaint as it is outmoded, and the contextual vacuum of this cutting room floor helps no one.


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

Adriano Costa, ax-d. us. t at Emalin ★★★☆☆

Adriano Costa

ax-d. us. t

★★★☆☆

Form triumphs over detritus.

Julia Maiuri, Yesterday & The End at Workplace ★☆☆☆☆

Julia Maiuri

Yesterday & The End

★☆☆☆☆

One can only imagine that some unconscious loathing of postmen motivated this project.

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.

Mohammed Z. Rahman, A Flame is a Petal at Phillida Reid ★★★☆☆

Mohammed Z. Rahman

A Flame is a Petal

★★★☆☆

Rahman’s zine hand makes this make-believe explicit but not plausible.

When Forms Come Alive at Hayward Gallery ★★☆☆☆

When Forms Come Alive

★★☆☆☆

This exhibition cannot decide if it’s a tourist attraction or a serious examination of sculpture’s relationship with movement.

Pablo Bronstein, Cakehole at Herald Str ★★★☆☆

Pablo Bronstein

Cakehole

★★★☆☆

Bronstein falls into the late evening stupor of the cheese trolley, the oyster tray, and… the Mars bar.

×