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:

Erick Meyenberg, Nos marchábamos, regresábamos siempre, the Mexican pavilion in Venice ★☆☆☆☆

Erick Meyenberg

Nos marchábamos, regresábamos siempre

Nos marchábamos, regresábamos siempre

★☆☆☆☆

Whatever the purpose of this confusion, it’s not to be found in the gallery.

Adriano Costa, ax-d. us. t at Emalin ★★★☆☆

Adriano Costa

ax-d. us. t

ax-d. us. t

★★★☆☆

Form triumphs over detritus.

Stephen Willats, Time Tumbler at Victoria Miro

Stephen Willats

Time Tumbler

Time Tumbler

★★★★☆

Willats orders fragments of time, matter, and space into data packets on one side of the flow chart and puts them to use on the other.

Anna Barriball at Frith Street Gallery ★★☆☆☆

Anna Barriball

New Drawings

New Drawings

★★☆☆☆

The eyes may be the windows of the soul. To make an aphorism of the reverse needs more than shadow-play.

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.

Amilia Graham, The Crust at Scatological Rites of All Nations ★★☆☆☆

Amilia Graham

The Crust

The Crust

★★☆☆☆

Each show lasts no more than three hours, and it’s bring-your-own booze.

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