Joanne Burke

Oes with works like Esses

★★★★☆

On until 1 March 2025

The risk of working with hot metal is that, like water, it spills away from the mould. Burke’s materials – silver, bronze, and aluminium – which she has worked into arcane ritual objects that one would more readily expect to find in the dimly-lit rooms of ethnographic museums than East London galleries have minds of their own. Some betray their decorative intent without revealing the occasion. Others are miniature charts that would lead the bearer to undisclosed treasure. A couple, resembling musical instruments, invite the staging of a performance whose score was never written.

These forms are exquisite and the little they lack in antique opulence they make up for in austerity. A nod to 17th-century hydromancy in the gallery text already charges the pieces with too much utility, however. Burke’s next demand that they affirm “posthuman feminist phenomenology” fails entirely. This, perversely, only confirms Quicksilver’s independence from artistic thought.


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

Manfred Pernice, Megan Plunknett, >anticorpo< at Galerie Neu and Emalin ★★★★☆

Manfred Pernice, Megan Plunknett

>anticorpo<

★★★★☆

Such ‘80s nostalgia for meaning before history’s end is a comfort blanket.

Herman Chong, The Book of Equators at Amanda Wilkinson ★★☆☆☆

Herman Chong

The Book of Equators

★★☆☆☆

Chong was probably reading some epic while painting his Equator pictures.

Onyeka Igwe, history is a living weapon in yr hand at PEER ★★☆☆☆

Onyeka Igwe

history is a living weapon in yr hand

★★☆☆☆

The Mavericks wanted a weapon, Igwe leaves them a toy.

Mohammad Ghazali, Trilogy: Then… at Ab-Anbar ★★★★☆

Mohammad Ghazali

Trilogy: Then…

★★★★☆

Repetition and framing are photography’s greatest tricks.

Celia Hempton, Transplant at Phillida Reid ★★★☆☆

Celia Hempton

Transplant

★★★☆☆

Sense finally returns only outside the gallery.

Carole Ebtinger, Esther Gatón at South Parade ★★☆☆☆

Carole Ebtinger, Esther Gatón

phosphorescence of my local lore

★★☆☆☆

Rot overpowered this subject and came for the object next. 

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