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:

Noah Davis at The Barbican ★★★☆☆

Noah Davis

★★★☆☆

Davis’ canvases give an account of time more sensitively than the Victorian portrait photograph

Ron Nagle, Conniption at Modern Art ★★★★★

Ron Nagle

Conniption

★★★★★

Less is more, as the saying goes. Nagle’s porcelain and resin maquettes are the bare minimum.

Max Boyla, Crying like a fire in the sun at Workplace ★★☆☆☆

Max Boyla

Crying like a fire in the sun

★★☆☆☆

Rothko’s abstractions are said to have induced tears in viewers overwhelmed by abstraction. Staring at the sun here, however, barely causes blindness.

Poppy Jones, Solid Objects at Herald St ★★★★☆

Poppy Jones

Solid Objects

★★★★☆

The lightness of the painter’s gesture cries out for a sledgehammer that would relieve the viewer of his doubt.

Alejandro Piñeiro Bello, Entre El Día Y La Noche at Pace ★☆☆☆☆

Alejandro Piñeiro Bello

Entre El Día Y La Noche

★☆☆☆☆

If only they were smaller, Piñera Ballo’s paintings would be a great hit in the shopping centre gallery your ex-army uncle just opened in Surrey. He’s gambling with the family’s savings, you condescend, but so is Pace with their show.…

Julia Maiuri, Yesterday & The End at Workplace ★☆☆☆☆

Julia Maiuri

Yesterday & The End

★☆☆☆☆

One can only imagine that some unconscious loathing of postmen motivated this project.

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