Dominique Fung

(Up)Rooted

★★☆☆☆

On until 20 December 2023

In Fung’s pastoral paintings and ceramics, the peaceful garden pond is the site of despair. Men weep into water lilies. The damned are locked in an underwater dance. Ghosts go fishing and fish are apex predators. 

All this tries to be macabre and surreal like in Bosch or Miyazaki but is instead laughably twee, not least because this isn’t the only show on in London set at the bottom of a Victorian garden. Fung may be on-trend and her East Asian influences elevate the canvases a little but the clumsy sculptures send the whole show back to the garden centre.


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

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.

Pauline Boty at Gazelli Art House ★★★★☆

Pauline Boty

A Portrait

★★★★☆

This exhibition mixes the woman and her legend, but without the air of mystery she enjoyed during her lifetime.

Trevor Yeung, Soft Ground, at Gasworks ★★☆☆☆

Trevor Yeung

Soft Ground

★★☆☆☆

It’s stressful enough to fuck in the forest for fear of passers-by or the police; imagine having to also look out for curators.

Eva Kot’átková, The Czech pavilion in Venice ★★☆☆☆

Eva Kot’átková

The heart of a giraffe in captivity is twelve kilos lighter

★★☆☆☆

The giraffe’s taxidermied corpse is host to an ideological stunt.

Divine Southgate-Smith, Navigator at Nicoletti ★☆☆☆☆

Divine Southgate-Smith

Navigator

★☆☆☆☆

It is too late to save the regime, yet too early to mourn it.

Yi To, Terminal Lucidity at Project Native Informant ★★★★☆

Yi To

Terminal Lucidity

★★★★☆

All evidence erodes eventually.

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