Freudian Typo

Condensed Word, Displaced Flesh

★★☆☆☆

On until 31 August 2025

The problem of artists who confuse graphic design with art is that they also mistake sloganeering for critique. The Iran-born duo Freudian Typo do both as they mount an immersive yet dour infomercial on the history of credit.

They dub debt the key idea of Western Christendom: a 16th-century Hebrew manuscript is fodder for a goat trading video. “Render unto Revenue what is Revenue’s”, “Go in peace and keep your receipts”, preach posters set in UK PLC’s corporate typeface. Wordy charts dot the gallery that’s half vet’s surgery, half Stansted arrivals. 

Discharge from this debt prison comes with a reading list. Yet it is hard to believe that the artists themselves read Graeber, Lacan, or Freud other than in search of a catchphrase. It takes them hundreds of words in the show’s pamphlet to name-check The Merchant of Venice, for example, only to fall into the sixth-grader’s trap. 


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

Jenkin van Zyl, Dance of the Sleepwalkers at Edel Assanti ★★★☆☆

Jenkin van Zyl

Dance of the Sleepwalkers

★★★☆☆

Ring 1 for “Grief”, and it’s flat 7 for “Garbage”.

RM, A Story Backwards at Auto Italia ★★☆☆☆

RM

A Story Backwards

★★☆☆☆

Having forgotten what the ‘dramatic’ in art stands for, visual artists today too often mistake hacked theory for stage directions.

Raed Yassin: Eternal Ghost at Cedric Bardawill ★★☆☆☆

Raed Yassin

Eternal Ghost

★★☆☆☆

Pictures of other people’s children don’t sell.

Marina Abramović, 7 Deaths of Maria Callas ★☆☆☆☆

Marina Abramović

7 Deaths of Maria Callas

★☆☆☆☆

Abramović wants to destroy all performance and all women until she holds the monopoly over stage death.

Kevin Brisco Jr, But I Hear There Are New Suns at Union Pacific ★★☆☆☆

Kevin Brisco Jr

But I Hear There Are New Suns

★★☆☆☆

I didn’t get to see this show. Perhaps for the best.

Celia Hempton, Transplant at Phillida Reid ★★★☆☆

Celia Hempton

Transplant

★★★☆☆

Sense finally returns only outside the gallery.

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