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:

Gray Wielebinski, The Red Sun is High, the Blue Low at ICA ★☆☆☆☆

The Red Sun is High, the Blue Low

★☆☆☆☆

I knew that it was possible to understand art and life less after seeing an exhibition. I didn’t, however, imagine that experiencing Wielebinski’s work twice would only compound such damage.

Sula Bermúdez-Silverman, Bad Luck Rock at Josh Lilley ★★☆☆☆

Bad Luck Rock

★★☆☆☆

This is a poor man’s version of history or a philistine collector’s absolution.

Dryland, the Greek pavilion in Venice ★★★★☆

Xirómero/Dryland

★★★★☆

It’s Sunday in the village. And the main square is deserted.

Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum, It Will End In Tears at Barbican Curve ★★☆☆☆

It Will End In Tears

★★☆☆☆

With the right lighting, this story could be a mid-century colonial classic.

RE/SISTERS at Barbican ★★☆☆☆

RE/SISTERS

★★☆☆☆

Too many deadpan landscape photographs turn intrigue into fatigue and into paralysis.

Aleksandar Denić, The Serbian pavilion in Venice ★★★☆☆

Exposition Coloniale

★★★☆☆

Denić took the Biennale’s theme literally, as though he was not in on the art world joke.

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