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:

Haegue Yang, Leap Year at Hayward Gallery ★★☆☆☆

Haegue Yang

Leap Year

Leap Year

★★☆☆☆

The funfair is shuttered, long live the fair.

Women in Revolt! at Tate ★★★☆☆

Women in Revolt!

Women in Revolt!

★★★☆☆

There’s a room for female labour, a corner for childbirth, one for black women, and a section for lesbians. This is as close to nuance as Tate gets today.

Will Gabaldón, Flicker at Union Pacific ★★★☆☆

Will Gabaldón

Flicker

Flicker

★★★☆☆

Gabaldón reinvents the pastoral for the Instagram generation.

Wilhelm Sasnal at Sadie Coles ★★★☆☆

Wilhelm Sasnal

★★★☆☆

Only in flights of anger does this vision come close to becoming believable.

Eva Kot’átková, The Czech pavilion in Venice ★★☆☆☆

Eva Kot’átková

The heart of a giraffe in captivity is twelve kilos lighter

The heart of a giraffe in captivity is twelve kilos lighter

★★☆☆☆

The giraffe’s taxidermied corpse is host to an ideological stunt.

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

Klara Lidén

Square Moon

Square Moon

★★☆☆☆

This isn’t Times Square in a blackout.

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