Justin Chance

Motherhood

★★☆☆☆

On until 26 October 2024

Quilt me a story. Chance’s wool fibre hangings stuffed between silk sheets set off accidental abstractions. One hides the outlines of a Leonardo cartoon. Another’s single blemish becomes a Caribbean island. Coming to the third which is densely marked as if it were a budget Basquiat, the mind is primed to play along with the artist’s unwitting trick. 

An intricate woven butterfly atlas completes the set. If only Chance stopped there. He also wrote two versions of his show’s press release but still somehow made no sense of his story. His barely comprehensible copy stitches a juvenile historical grievance into the chaos of a butterfly’s flutter. These ideas rob the works of authenticity. Their grammar, worse than is customary of the genre, turns the show into a joke. 


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

Nanténé Traoré at Sultana and Amanda Wilkinson ★★☆☆☆

Nanténé Traoré

She says it's the high energy

★★☆☆☆

Bodies clash with lights in front of Traoré’s Narcissus camera.

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.

Talar Aghabshian, Solace of the Afterimage at Marfa’ at The Approach ★★☆☆☆

Talar Aghbashian

Solace of the Afterimage

★★☆☆☆

The carpet dealer gallerist’s zeal reveals the work’s lamentable inadequacy. 

Sosa Joseph, Pennungal at David Zwirner ★★★★★

Sosa Joseph

Pennungal: Lives of women and girls

★★★★★

The night, finally, recognises despair and witnesses infanticide.”

Dickon Drury at Seventeen ★★★☆☆

Dickon Drury

The Preceding Cart & POV: You are Beans

★★★☆☆

Painting needs prophets, Drury plays a jester.

Pablo Bronstein, Cakehole at Herald Str ★★★☆☆

Pablo Bronstein

Cakehole

★★★☆☆

Bronstein falls into the late evening stupor of the cheese trolley, the oyster tray, and… the Mars bar.

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