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:

The Stars Fell on Alabama at Edel Assanti ★★★☆☆

Mary L. Bennett, Richard Dial, Thornton Dial, Lonnie Holley, Ronald Lockett, Joe Minter, Mose Tolliver

The Stars Fell on Alabama: Southern Black Renaissance

The Stars Fell on Alabama: Southern Black Renaissance

★★★☆☆

The commercial imperative is understandable. The art historical intent, less clear.

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

Roland Knowlden

Negations

Negations

★★★☆☆

An exhausted porcupine and an architectural war plan.

Liam Gillick, The Sleepwalkers at Maureen Paley ★★★☆☆

Liam Gillick

The Sleepwalkers

The Sleepwalkers

★★★☆☆

Gillick’s practice lacks obviously consistent character, save for it is sparseness of means and the ungraspability of its referents.

TJ Wilcox, Hiding in Plain Sight at Sadie Coles HQ ★★☆☆☆

TJ Wilcox

Hiding in Plain Sight

Hiding in Plain Sight

★★☆☆☆

Vanity proceeds in circles.

Ghada Amer, QR CODES REVISITED—LONDON at Goodman ★★☆☆☆

Ghada Amer

QR CODES REVISITED—LONDON

QR CODES REVISITED—LONDON

★★☆☆☆

This invites a game of proofreading, in hope that Amer maliciously inserted a greengrocer’s apostrophe into de Beauvoir’s mind.

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

×