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:

Jan Gatewood, Group Relations at Rose Easton ★☆☆☆☆

Jan Gatewood

Group Relations

★☆☆☆☆

Such thin metaphors could only have come from LA.

Alejandro Piñeiro Bello, Entre El Día Y La Noche at Pace ★☆☆☆☆

Alejandro Piñeiro Bello

Entre El Día Y La Noche

★☆☆☆☆

If only they were smaller, Piñera Ballo’s paintings would be a great hit in the shopping centre gallery your ex-army uncle just opened in Surrey. He’s gambling with the family’s savings, you condescend, but so is Pace with their show.…

Carla Åhlander, Aaron Amar Bhamra, Holding Places at Belmacz ★★★☆☆

Carla Åhlander, Aaron Amar Bhamr

Holding Places

★★★☆☆

The illusion is as good as complete.

Tyler Eash, All the World’s Horses at Nicoletti ★★☆☆☆

Tyler Eash

All the World's Horses

★★☆☆☆

The artist must choose which ground is best ceded.

Nicola Turner, Edward Bekkerman at Shtager&Shch ★★☆☆☆

Nicola Turner, Edward Bekkerman

The Song of Psyche: Corners of a Soul's Otherworlds

★★☆☆☆

Who opens a space in Fitzrovia only to fill it with such drivel?

looking to the futurepast, we are treading forward, the Bolivian pavilion in Venice ★☆☆☆☆

looking to the futurepast, we are treading forward

★☆☆☆☆

The contemporary is of no interest to a nation whose future is yet to be dug out from the ground.

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