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:

Abdullah Al Saadi, Sites of Memory, Sites of Amnesia, UAE pavilion in Venice ★★★☆☆

Abdullah Al Saadi

Sites of Memory, Sites of Amnesia

★★★☆☆

The exhibition’s user experience rivals that of the Apple Store.

Wilhelm Sasnal at Sadie Coles ★★★☆☆

Wilhelm Sasnal

★★★☆☆

Only in flights of anger does this vision come close to becoming believable.

Tamara Henderson, Green in the Grooves at Camden Art Centre ★★★★☆

Tamara Henderson

Green in the Grooves

★★★★☆

The whole thing feels like a remake of Wind in the Willows directed by a garden gnome.

Anna Barriball at Frith Street Gallery ★★☆☆☆

Anna Barriball

New Drawings

★★☆☆☆

The eyes may be the windows of the soul. To make an aphorism of the reverse needs more than shadow-play.

Maso Nakahara: Floating Through Time at Pippy Houldsworth ★★★★☆

Maso Nakahara

Floating Through Time

★★★★☆

Biblical floods, the comet’s fall, and the odd tsunami mercilessly toss Nakahara’s protagonists about.

Alex Katz, Spring at Timothy Taylor ★★☆☆☆

Alex Katz

Spring

★★☆☆☆

The emperor’s clothes have moth holes.

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