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:

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.

Nicola Turner, Edward Bekkerman at Shtager&Shch ★★☆☆☆

Nicola Turner, Edward Bekkerman

The Song of Psyche: Corners of a Soul's Otherworlds

★★☆☆☆

Who opens a space in Fitzrovia only to fill it with such drivel?

Oh, the Storm at Rodeo ★☆☆☆☆

Oh, the Storm

★☆☆☆☆

This exhibitions is trying to explain the concept of ‘crazy paving’ to a blind man. It’s impossible to tell where a work ends and the wall begins.

Justin Chance, Motherhood at Ginny on Frederick ★★☆☆☆

Justin Chance

Motherhood

★★☆☆☆

If only he stopped there.

Mohammed Z. Rahman, A Flame is a Petal at Phillida Reid ★★★☆☆

Mohammed Z. Rahman

A Flame is a Petal

★★★☆☆

Rahman’s zine hand makes this make-believe explicit but not plausible.

Pakui Hardware, Maria Terese Rozanskaite, Inflammation at Lithuanian pavilion Venice ★★★☆☆

Pakui Hardware, Maria Terese Rožanskaité

Inflammation

★★★☆☆

One of the novelties in Venice is the artwork that looks good but on reflection isn’t.

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