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:

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.

Leonardo Drew, Ubiquity II at South London Gallery ★★☆☆☆

Leonardo Drew

Ubiquity II

★★☆☆☆

There are many ways to misunderstand entropy.

Alvaro Barrington, Grandma’s Land at Sadie Coles ★★★☆☆

Alvaro Barrington

Grandma’s Land

★★★☆☆

The party slumps into a half-voiced political complaint and never recovers. This is what happens when instead of living culture, we ‘celebrate’ it.

Joseph Awuah-Darko, How is your day going? at Ed Cross ★★☆☆☆

Joseph Awuah-Darko

How is your day going?

★★☆☆☆

This project relies on layers of gimmicks and, sadly, they show through Awuah-Darko’s thick palette knife impasto.

Botond Keresztesi, NPC (No-one Paints Chrysopoeia) at Seventeen ★★★☆☆

Botond Keresztesi

NPC (No-one Paints Chrysopoeia)

★★★☆☆

There is no “too much” in this fantasy meme game.

Jenny Saville: The Anatomy of Painting at National Portrait Gallery ★★★☆☆

Jenny Saville

The Anatomy of Painting

★★★☆☆

There is no trace of the visceral in Saville’s gentle pencil studies, for example.

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