I'm so gay for you

★★☆☆☆

Curated by Sophie Williamson
On until 15 March 2025

Valentine’s Day is good to launch a love-in, but this thirteen-artist “celebration of queerness” is no orgy. Judging by the works selected – seemingly at random – from a related glossy magazine, to be gay is to remain only half-aware of having a body lest it prompts the realisation that so does everyone else.

The fear of sex haunts this project, if not the culture it stems from. Murky images, like Rosie Thomas’ silvery snapshots of street carnivals gesture at sensuousness but they are too hard to read, and so without good reason. Gosia Kołdraszewska thinks she’s a sex rebel, but outright censors her erotic scene with a a cutesy metaphor that saves her subjects the proverbial bother. Paul Arthur’s raunchy 70’s pin-up once came close to a climax. It now seeks the ending on PornHub.

Does anyone fuck anymore? Or make art? At least Lucy Deveral has the nerve to make an old-school lesbian nude, and that alone breaks the show’s mantra of “joy”. All that’s left is to giggle post-coitally, then dive into Olivia Sterling’s body part patisserie.


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

Haegue Yang, Leap Year at Hayward Gallery ★★☆☆☆

Haegue Yang

Leap Year

★★☆☆☆

The funfair is shuttered, long live the fair.

Christopher Aque, Alexandre Khondji at Sweetwater and Studio M ★★★★★

Christopher Aque, Alexandre Khondji

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Wilhelm Sasnal at Sadie Coles ★★★☆☆

Wilhelm Sasnal

★★★☆☆

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Alexis Kyle Mitchell: The Goal of Our Health at Peer ★★☆☆☆

Alexis Kyle Mitchell

The Goal of Our Health

★★☆☆☆

When Adam Curtis stopped narrating his ‘documentaries’, some stories are wasted breath.

Judith Dean at South Parade ★★★★☆

Judith Dean

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★★★★☆

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Sin Wei Kin, Portraits at Soft Opening ★★☆☆☆

Sin Wei Kin

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★★☆☆☆

This exhibition combines the most vulgar of all art school tropes: juvenile narcissism, NFT kitsch, and mindless referentialism.

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