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:

Rose Finn-Kelcey, Suit of Lights at Kate MacGarry ★★★★☆

Rose Finn-Kelcey

Suit of Lights

Suit of Lights

★★★★☆

Local-art-centre retro exposes the breakdown of the feminist art project.

Botond Keresztesi, NPC (No-one Paints Chrysopoeia) at Seventeen ★★★☆☆

Botond Keresztesi

NPC (No-one Paints Chrysopoeia)

NPC (No-one Paints Chrysopoeia)

★★★☆☆

There is no “too much” in this fantasy meme game.

Harmony Korine, Aggressive Dr1fter Part II at Hauser & Wirth ★★☆☆☆

Harmony Korine

Aggressive Dr1fter Part II

Aggressive Dr1fter Part II

★★☆☆☆

The garish colours which may have carried the story in cinema here are unfitting of their new medium.

Soufiane Ababri, Their mouths at Barbican ★★☆☆☆

Soufiane Ababri

Their mouths were full of bumblebees

Their mouths were full of bumblebees

★★☆☆☆

Ababri’s paintings for the Grindr generation are more cartoonish than they are from life.

transfeminisms Chapter IV at Mimosa House ★☆☆☆☆

transfeminisms Chapter IV: Care and Kinship

transfeminisms Chapter IV: Care and Kinship

★☆☆☆☆

Lack of care for the artefact is a strange USP for a gallery.

Jenny Saville: The Anatomy of Painting at National Portrait Gallery ★★★☆☆

Jenny Saville

The Anatomy of Painting

The Anatomy of Painting

★★★☆☆

There is no trace of the visceral in Saville’s gentle pencil studies, for example.

×