Jan Gatewood

Group Relations

★☆☆☆☆

On until 2 March 2024

“Like people, rabbits come in a variety of different shapes, sizes, and colours”, the exhibition handout warns visitors. Beware, ye faint of heart because Gatewood has bred at least a dozen. She has a story for each and each is more thrilling than the last. The show’s a dive down the warren and it will leave you breathless. 

But not thanks to the qualities of her rainbow pastels. No. These rabbits are, to swap Gatewood’s idiotic euphemism for another, stand-ins for ‘historically oppressed people’. “Children of the projects” appear in one. Others, she explains, are the alter egos of Toni Morrison, David Hammons, and Kara Walker. 

As though this couldn’t get any more patronising, the bunnies preach morals. “Rearrange yourself as an act of humility,” one challenges the bamboozled viewer. Such thin metaphors could only have come from LA. Did Gatewood look at her “In This House We Believe” yard sign and think that it needed some furries?


notes and notices are short and curt exhibition reviews. Read more:

David Muenzer, Teen at Final Hot Desert ★★★☆☆

David Muenzer

Teen

★★★☆☆

Muenzer’s messy show bedroom actually is someone’s messy bedroom most nights of the week.

Nicole Eisenman, What Happened at Whitechapel Gallery ★★★☆☆

Nicole Eisenman

What Happened

★★★☆☆

There’s a Bosch hellscape dedicated to Trump and a whole “basket of deplorables” polishing their guns in a prepper cell.

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

Amilia Graham

The Crust

★★☆☆☆

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

I’m so gay for you at Miłość ★★☆☆☆

I'm so gay for you

★★☆☆☆

This “celebration of queerness” is no orgy

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

Ghada Amer

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.

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

Jenny Saville

The Anatomy of Painting

★★★☆☆

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

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