Ksenia Pedan
Revision

★★★★☆

Curated by Adomas Narkevičius
On until 19 November 2023

Pedan’s paintings would rather be anything but. Their surfaces, rendered on board that looks as if attacked with an angle grinder, betray little. They hang above eye level, as though to discourage close inspection. The gallery, likewise, isn’t like a gallery. Lengths of electrical cabling cross the walls without reason. Crude boxing conceals the radiators and budget light fittings shine directly into the visitors’ eyes.

But a false wall that oddly covers an altar on which a bird abandoned its nest reveals that all this is a shoddy cover-up, a botched renovation in which the builders cut corners before rushing off to their next job. Everything’s a little sub-standard in that way one begrudgingly gets used to but can never truly overlook.

Even the paintings use the pseudo-neutral palette and form of a mid-range interior design catalogue that rejects lasting meaning. But their marks slowly become discernible: a dense forest, a pile of bones, an hourglass turning dust to dust. In this eerie environment, they demand reverence and reward it with stories of death and disaster that resist any rushed renewal.


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

RM, A Story Backwards at Auto Italia ★★☆☆☆

RM

A Story Backwards

★★☆☆☆

Having forgotten what the ‘dramatic’ in art stands for, visual artists today too often mistake hacked theory for stage directions.

Bhenji Ra, Biraddali Dancing on the Horizon at Auto Italia ★☆☆☆☆

Bhenji Ra

Biraddali Dancing on the Horizon

★☆☆☆☆

Such work was once a mere grift. Now, it is an outright stitch-up.

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”.

Atiéna R Kilfa, Primitive Tales, at Cabinet ★☆☆☆☆

Atiéna R. Kilfa

Primitive Tales

★☆☆☆☆

An uninspired re-staging of the artist’s Camden Arts Centre show.

Michael Andrew Page, Claustrum at Project Native Informant ★★★★☆

Michael Andrew Page

Claustrum

★★★★☆

Page’s tent, brain, and the cathedral take the same form for a pretty good reason.

Anastasia Pavlou, Reader at Hot Wheels ★★☆☆☆

Anastasia Pavlou

Reader, Part 2; The Reader Reads Words in Sentences

★★☆☆☆

In this game of aesthetic cognition, the idea which survives is of the artist thinking.

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