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:

Saccharine Symbols at Rose Easton ★★★☆☆

Marisa Krangwiwat Holmes, Shamiran Istifan, Tasneem Sarkez

Saccharine Symbols

Saccharine Symbols

★★★☆☆

Meaning parts with the image in this exhibition, never to return. Post-structuralism triumphs.

Yorgos Prinos, Prologue to a Prayer at Hot Wheels ★★★★☆

Yorgos Prinos

Prologue to a Prayer

Prologue to a Prayer

★★★★☆

Prinos’ frames are precise, tight, and formal, as though the street were his studio.

Place Revisited at Modern Art ★★★★☆

Richard Aldrich, Prunella Clough, Masanori Tomita, Anh Trần, Terry Winters

Place Revisited

Place Revisited

★★★★☆

One suspects the gallery of insider trading.

Maso Nakahara: Floating Through Time at Pippy Houldsworth ★★★★☆

Maso Nakahara

Floating Through Time

Floating Through Time

★★★★☆

Biblical floods, the comet’s fall, and the odd tsunami mercilessly toss Nakahara’s protagonists about.

Calla Henkel & Max Pitegoff, I.W. Payne, Downtown at 243 Luz ★★★★☆

Calla Henkel & Max Pitegoff, I.W. Payne

Downtown

Downtown

★★★★☆

This project has no room for breath and even less for context.

Meeson Jessica Pae, Secretions & Formations at Carl Kostyál ★★★★☆

Meeson Jessica Pae

Secretions & Formations

Secretions & Formations

★★★★☆

Oil paint can cause cancer.

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