Jacob Dahlgren

When Anxieties Become Form

★★☆☆☆

On until 27 September 2024

“Choose one idea and stick with it no matter what” was decent advice for an artist until a couple of decades ago. Dahlgren took this to heart and spent his career rearranging stripes of colour with a dedication that would put Daniel Buren to shame. He has produced stripy prints, sculptures, videos, and photographs. He has even staged a series of colour protests filled with placards designed to his colour scheme. He probably makes his own t-shirts which, of course, are always striped.

I met Dahlgren in his studio over a decade ago and even then wondered how and if his practice might develop. It seems that it hasn’t. But should it? In this anxiously posed show, the works are older than the artist’s last good idea, and nothing strives for novelty not already synonymous with modernity. If only Dahlgren’s proposition was any more daring, disordered, or simply counterintuitive, the gallery might be spared waiting for his stripe to enter the canon.


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

Alexandre Canonico, Still at Ab Anbar ★★★☆☆

Alexandre Canonico

Still

★★★☆☆

Conanico’s slight structures look like they could take flight at any moment.

Oisín Byrne, Not Marble at Amanda Wilkinson ★★☆☆☆

Oisín Byrne

Not Marble

★★☆☆☆

Byrne has a type. Or rather, he’ll paint you into one.

Saccharine Symbols at Rose Easton ★★★☆☆

Marisa Krangwiwat Holmes, Shamiran Istifan, Tasneem Sarkez

Saccharine Symbols

★★★☆☆

Meaning parts with the image in this exhibition, never to return. Post-structuralism triumphs.

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

Leonardo Drew

Ubiquity II

★★☆☆☆

There are many ways to misunderstand entropy.

Linder, Danger Came Smiling at Hayward Gallery ★★★★☆

Linder

Danger Came Smiling

★★★★☆

Linder’s second-wave feminist propositions were ruthlessly superseded.

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.

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