Haegue Yang

Leap Year

★★☆☆☆

On until 5 January 2025

The only good way to encounter a Yang piece is on the last day of an art fair, where the dealer won’t mind your kid jangling the bells on her giant mobile sculptures. In the gallery, only the staff may touch the same laundry racks and light bulbs lest they find life of their own. These objects lack verve here, like in the Ikea catalogue where they belong.

The institution mindlessly reads life, culture, and even high politics into Yang’s window blind hangings, ignoring her testimony of this project’s sterility. It sadly makes far less of her early varnish and waste paintings which are the show’s only lively components. Next to them, Yang’s ‘Korean craft’ section comes off as a con and not a life’s question. The funfair is shuttered, long live the fair.


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

Dayanita Singh at Frith Street Gallery ★★☆☆☆

Dayanita Singh

★★☆☆☆

Singh’s pictures cold have been made by at least three other Frith Street artists.

Calla Henkel & Max Pitegoff, I.W. Payne, Downtown at 243 Luz ★★★★☆

Calla Henkel & Max Pitegoff, I.W. Payne

Downtown

★★★★☆

This project has no room for breath and even less for context.

Sibylle Ruppert, Frenzy of the Visible at Project Native Informant ★★★★☆

Sibylle Ruppert

Frenzy of the Visible

★★★★☆

This is the fodder of DeviantArt and the last year’s AI engines.

Nick Relph, Fils, ta vision! at Herald St ★☆☆☆☆

Nick Relph

Fils, ta vision!

★☆☆☆☆

There’s little for the eye to hang on and none of the punk culture of Relph’s earlier practice emerges from the works.

Turner Prize 2024 at Tate Britain ★★☆☆☆

Pio Abad, Claudette Johnson, Jasleen Kaur, Delaine Le Bas

Turner Prize 2024

★★☆☆☆

Even the artists approach this edition with ennui.

Manfred Pernice, Megan Plunknett, >anticorpo< at Galerie Neu and Emalin ★★★★☆

Manfred Pernice, Megan Plunknett

>anticorpo<

★★★★☆

Such ‘80s nostalgia for meaning before history’s end is a comfort blanket.

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