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:

Ghada Amer, QR CODES REVISITED—LONDON at Goodman ★★☆☆☆

Ghada Amer

QR CODES REVISITED—LONDON

★★☆☆☆

This invites a game of proofreading, in hope that Amer maliciously inserted a greengrocer’s apostrophe into de Beauvoir’s mind.

Miranda Forrester, Arrival at Tiwani Contemporary ★★★☆☆

Miranda Forrester

Arrival

★★★☆☆

Forrester’s project is timely when foundational concepts like ‘mother’ and their ‘as-though’ counterparts are readily confused.

Lutz Bacher, AYE! at Raven Row ★★★★☆

Lutz Bacher

AYE!

★★★★☆

There’s joy in repetition. There’s joy in repetition. There’s joy in repetition. There’s joy in repetition. There’s joy in repetition. There’s joy in repetition.

Peter Fischli and David Weiss at Sprüth Magers ★★★★☆

Peter Fischli and David Weiss

★★★★☆

A police procedural turns into a drinking game of Foucauldian power analysis.

Matthew Barney, SECONDARY at Sadie Coles HQ ★★★☆☆

Matthew Barney

SECONDARY: light lens parallax

★★★☆☆

Secondary turns the gallery into an American Football stadium. But all the seats in the house are the cheap seats and the game lacks a cheerleader.

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.

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