Entangled Pasts, 1768–now

★★☆☆☆

On until 28 April 2024

Menacing calls to decolonise art history loom large over the museum. But contrary to its stated ideological mission, the project is beneficial to everyone involved. At £20 per indulgence, this show absolves The Royal Academy of its original sin. An optional £2 donation excuses the visitor too.

But this more smoke and mirrors than a pious endeavour. One gallery parades John Singleton Copley – an academician painter forgettable save for his slave holdings – as the gift shop brand scapegoat. Another confusingly notes that the 1807 act of abolition had both supporters and opponents among artists. Later, US and British histories and art worlds mix with little discipline, laying the ground for claims that are as faddish as they are hyperbolic. A noxious mix of evidence and emotion dismisses any niggling doubts.

The show’s decisive weakness, however, is its aesthetic reliance to lift guilty souls from the gutter of history on a handful of already familiar works. The fragments of Himid, Locke, Walker, and Shonibare which frame the narrative have done so much ‘work’ in another parish that they are no witness to the Academy’s half-sincere contrition. Who could have thought that these mantras would turn into rote? 


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

Thibault Aedy, Dilara Koz at Filet ★★★☆☆

Thibault Aedy, Dilara Koz

Caressed and Polished and Drained and Washed

★★★☆☆

These ideas can’t last beyond the pop-up show’s closing date.

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.

Trackie McLeod, FRUIT II at The Bomb Factory ★★☆☆☆

Trackie McLeod

FRUIT II

★★☆☆☆

“Working-class” and “queer” appear in the collateral as obligatory. What doesn’t is “white”.

Yannis Maniatakos, Four Paintings at Sylvia Kouvali ★★★☆☆

Estate of Yiannis Maniatakos

Four Paintings

★★★☆☆

Examining the paintings in the gallery’s bright lights doesn’t lift their mystery.

Will Gabaldón, Flicker at Union Pacific ★★★☆☆

Will Gabaldón

Flicker

★★★☆☆

Gabaldón reinvents the pastoral for the Instagram generation.

Ignacy Czwartos, Polonia Uncensored, Venice ★★☆☆☆

Ignacy Czwartos

Polonia Uncensored

★★☆☆☆

Czwartos’ painting proves little and his sign-writer’s hand loses art history’s bet.

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