Laura Lima

The Drawing Drawing

★★★☆☆

On until 29 March 2026

The tautological title of this exhibition, paired with the gallery extolling Lima’s practice as “category-defying”, cautions the visitor of some heavy abstraction ahead. Not without reason. 

The artist turned the ground floor into a life-drawing studio. How radical, truly! The twist, as if another were needed, is that both the model and punters pose on mechanised platforms. They float akin to robot vacuum cleaners. Is this perspective-taking? If so, the whining, high-pitched noise of the floats’ brushless motors does all the work. 

Upstairs, a beach umbrella dances to Brazilian beats. Looks fun, but it’s inconsequential. Next door, a commercial freezer keeps liquid tray sculptures solid; a pair of gloves invites limited, soft-play interaction.

Not much of anything in particular, then. Are these sampler vignettes of some larger, untold story? Fragments that may, when augmented, form a discernible thesis? Lima’s desire to phrase questions in philosophical jargon is obvious. It’s not even stupid. Yet it is less clear that she knows how her objects answer. Consequently, she leaves far too much for the viewer.


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

Odoteres Ricardo de Ozias at David Zwirner ★★★☆☆

Odoteres Ricardo de Ozias

★★★☆☆

These images are perfectly charming even to a viewer possessed of a cold anthropological eye. The troubling part is in realising just how far ‘outside’ the ideas are.

Your Ghosts Are Mine at Palazzo Franchetti ★★★☆☆

Your Ghosts Are Mine: Expanded Cinemas, Amplified Voices

★★★☆☆

This attempt at building pan-Arabic film aesthetics falls prey to the art technician’s trickery.

Anna Barriball at Frith Street Gallery ★★☆☆☆

Anna Barriball

New Drawings

★★☆☆☆

The eyes may be the windows of the soul. To make an aphorism of the reverse needs more than shadow-play.

Ksenia Pedan, Revision at Cell Project Space ★★★★☆

Ksenia Pedan

Revision

★★★★☆

Pedan’s paintings would rather be anything but.

Robert Rauschenberg, ROCI at Thaddeus Ropac ★★★☆☆

Robert Rauschenberg

ROCI

★★★☆☆

This project outs Rauschenberg as a propagandist if not an outright Fed.

Some May Work as Symbols at Raven Row ★★★★☆

Some May Work as Symbols: Art Made in Brazil, 1950s–70s

★★★★☆

Art history can catch modernity in splitting from the past and thus from itself.

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