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:

Lutz Bacher, AYE! at Raven Row ★★★★☆

Lutz Bacher

AYE!

AYE!

★★★★☆

There’s joy in repetition. There’s joy in repetition. There’s joy in repetition. There’s joy in repetition. There’s joy in repetition. There’s joy in repetition.

SACCADES, Leo Arnold with Jo Baer at Brunette Coleman ★★★★☆

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SACCADES

SACCADES

★★★★☆

One dare not ask for more.

Marina Abramović, 7 Deaths of Maria Callas ★☆☆☆☆

Marina Abramović

7 Deaths of Maria Callas

7 Deaths of Maria Callas

★☆☆☆☆

Abramović wants to destroy all performance and all women until she holds the monopoly over stage death.

Rheim Alkadhi, Templates for Liberation at ICA ★★☆☆☆

Rheim Alkadhi

Templates for Liberation

Templates for Liberation

★★☆☆☆

When truth and artifice are so bluntly opposed, what use is aesthetics?

Klara Lidén, Square Moon at Sadie Coles ★★☆☆☆

Klara Lidén

Square Moon

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★★☆☆☆

This isn’t Times Square in a blackout.

Cynthia Hawkins: Maps Necessary for a Walk in 4D: Chapter 4 at Hollybush Gardens

Cynthia Hawkins

Maps Necessary for a Walk in 4D: Chapter 4

Maps Necessary for a Walk in 4D: Chapter 4

★★★☆☆

Hawkins’s paint reveals that her studio was no crime scene.

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