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:

Oisín Byrne, Not Marble at Amanda Wilkinson ★★☆☆☆

Oisín Byrne

Not Marble

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★★☆☆☆

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Nicola Singh: Sincere Seeker at Cubitt ★★☆☆☆

Nicola Singh

Sincere Seeker

Sincere Seeker

★★☆☆☆

What would it take for art to look like something, anything once more?

Judith Dean at South Parade ★★★★☆

Judith Dean

New Builds / Bilds 2: did you mean peace?

New Builds / Bilds 2: did you mean peace?

★★★★☆

Holbein’s skulls impresses no one anymore.

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

Geumhyung Jeong, Under Construction at ICA ★☆☆☆☆

Geumhyung Jeong

Under Construction

Under Construction

★☆☆☆☆

This tech-optimism might have entertained gallery-goers twenty years ago.

Theodore Ereira-Guyer, Jandyra Waters: We Lost Lots of Beautiful Things at Elizabeth Xi Bauer

Theodore Ereira-Guyer, Jandyra Waters

We Lost Lots of Beautiful Things

We Lost Lots of Beautiful Things

★★★★☆

The human mind is mimetic – all art is representation.

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