Gabriel Hartley

Floorlines

★★★★★

On until 21 December 2024

Desire breeds introspection. Semi-abstract expanses of ink and detritus make up intricate patterns on Hartley’s compact canvases. Veins of pigment glow on odd-looking stoneware tablets which hang between the pictures. A display of Polaroids whose surfaces erupted in paint and volcanic ash turns the exhibition into a study of itself. 

Desire breeds mistrust. Misprinted pages ripped out from old art history books are the show’s unlisted medium. Hartley pulped Cézannes, Monets, and Twomblys into his paint binder, affording his masters a second and a third chance. That a shameless Rothko miniature somehow survived intact in this mix throws the lot into a crisis of authority.


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

Wilhelm Sasnal at Sadie Coles ★★★☆☆

Wilhelm Sasnal

★★★☆☆

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

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.

Some May Work as Symbols at Raven Row ★★★★☆

Some May Work as Symbols: Art Made in Brazil, 1950s–70s

★★★★☆

Art history can catch modernity in splitting from the past and thus from itself.

Eddie Ruscha, Seeing Frequencies at Cedric Bardawil ★☆☆☆☆

Eddie Ruscha

Seeing Frequencies

★☆☆☆☆

But either the curator or the artist should have known better.

Choon Mi Kim, ACID—FREEEE at Ginny on Frederick ★☆☆☆☆

Choon Mi Kim

ACID—FREEEE

★☆☆☆☆

Some forms of abstraction simply scream ‘my kid could have made that’.

Megan Rooney, Echoes & Hours at Kettle’s Yard ★★☆☆☆

Megan Rooney

Echoes & Hours

★★☆☆☆

For all this bravado, Rooney’s compositions offer only a very surface experience of abstraction.

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