Justin Caguiat

Dreampop

★★★★☆

On until 4 November 2023

This is the sort of exhibition that makes a critic question the quality of their judgment. In principle, Caguiat’s large-scale abstract canvases shouldn’t feel this alluring. The paintings are filled with splodges of colour that resemble Van Gogh’s starry sky as if seen through a kaleidoscope. The surfaces are at times too busy and some look like children’s book illustrations in which all shapes and colours have swapped place. 

But for this precisely they are arresting. At first, they become detective stories: squint to see Bosch’s Last Judgment in one and follow another to Toulouse Lautrec’s Montmartre. The critic brain rebels at this trick, but it only draws the eye closer until it understands that the paint itself is an abstraction. It takes a moment for the senses to recover from this illusion and when they are restored, the shapes and colours emerge with an entirely new logic of their own.


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

Jenkin van Zyl, Dance of the Sleepwalkers at Edel Assanti ★★★☆☆

Jenkin van Zyl

Dance of the Sleepwalkers

★★★☆☆

Ring 1 for “Grief”, and it’s flat 7 for “Garbage”.

Women in Revolt! at Tate ★★★☆☆

Women in Revolt!

★★★☆☆

There’s a room for female labour, a corner for childbirth, one for black women, and a section for lesbians. This is as close to nuance as Tate gets today.

Sin Wei Kin, Portraits at Soft Opening ★★☆☆☆

Sin Wei Kin

Portraits

★★☆☆☆

This exhibition combines the most vulgar of all art school tropes: juvenile narcissism, NFT kitsch, and mindless referentialism.

Pope.L, Hospital at South London Gallery ★★★☆☆

Pope.L

Hospital

★★★☆☆

This project lands in the joke section of Animal Farm and not as a prophecy of the Jan 6th insurrection.

Cynthia Hawkins: Maps Necessary for a Walk in 4D: Chapter 4 at Hollybush Gardens

Cynthia Hawkins

Maps Necessary for a Walk in 4D: Chapter 4

★★★☆☆

Hawkins’s paint reveals that her studio was no crime scene.

Marina Abramović, 7 Deaths of Maria Callas ★☆☆☆☆

Marina Abramović

7 Deaths of Maria Callas

★☆☆☆☆

Abramović wants to destroy all performance and all women until she holds the monopoly over stage death.

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