James Welling and Bernd & Hilla Becher

★★★☆☆

On until 19 April 2025

Not taking the Becher’s name in vain was once the sole Düsseldorf school commandment. Welling trained elsewhere and, besides, his claim on typology is also a decades-long story. Yet this two-venue paring of the three photographers’ deadpan architectural meditations is a dead giveaway of Welling as a mere imitator.

Perhaps. The Bechers recorded industrial phenomena with such restraint that their lens critique was evident in even a single snapshot. Welling’s veneration of brutalist concrete – his lens turns to Washington’s infamous HUD building now outlawed under Trump’s classical architecture edict – borders on a fetish by contrast. But if one no longer needs to look at Bernd and Hilla’s grain silos, Welling’s quasi-opportunistic fixation leads to fresher discoveries.


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

Machine Painting at Modern Art ★★★★☆

Machine Painting

Machine Painting

★★★★☆

Ask DALL-E to paint an abstraction and it’ll confidently produce a museum-worthy clone

Richard Hunt, Metamorphosis at White Cube ★★★★★

Richard Hunt

Metamorphosis

Metamorphosis

★★★★★

A dictionary for self-determination written in phrases as they were being invented.

Choon Mi Kim, ACID—FREEEE at Ginny on Frederick ★☆☆☆☆

Choon Mi Kim

ACID—FREEEE

ACID—FREEEE

★☆☆☆☆

Some forms of abstraction simply scream ‘my kid could have made that’.

Roland Knowlden: Negations at House Work Presents ★★★☆☆

Roland Knowlden

Negations

Negations

★★★☆☆

An exhausted porcupine and an architectural war plan.

Carla Åhlander, Aaron Amar Bhamra, Holding Places at Belmacz ★★★☆☆

Carla Åhlander, Aaron Amar Bhamr

Holding Places

Holding Places

★★★☆☆

The illusion is as good as complete.

I’m so gay for you at Miłość ★★☆☆☆

I'm so gay for you

I'm so gay for you

★★☆☆☆

This “celebration of queerness” is no orgy

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