Mandy El-Sayegh

Interiors

★★☆☆☆

On until 30 September 2023

Interiors fly-posts the grand civic forms of the Ropac townhouse with sheets from the Financial Times and the Daily Mail and vast expanses of poured latex. Everything is soft and pastel. A curtain, also dipped in beige latex, isolates an oppressively-filled room. Contours of the continents are discernible underneath the rubber, alongside fragmented of headlines. A cacophonous narrative, an equally discordant video collage. Upstairs, the forms devour the walls, too. Some worn-out carpets compete with another soundtrack. The eye longs for the calmer view outside.

El-Sayegh says she wanted to replicate Freud’s consulting room and her studio. But for the abundance of material, there simply aren’t enough ideas in the exhibition to go around these Mayfair halls. The show thus looks like a hurried response (all works dated 2023) to a gap (four weeks) in the schedule. Sometimes, access to the resources of a mega-gallery is a curse. By contrast, El-Sayegh’s restrained 2019 Chisenhale exhibition was far more ambitious.


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

Phung-Tien Pham, doesn’t work at Project Native Informant ★★☆☆☆

Phung-Tien Pham

doesn't work

★★☆☆☆

Fad aesthetics for fad ideas.

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.

Gabriel Hartley, Floorlines at Seventeen ★★★★★

Gabriel Hartley

Floorlines

★★★★★

Desire breeds introspection. Desire breeds mistrust.

Yo Nishimura: Dislocation at Sadie Coles ★☆☆☆☆

Yo Nishimura

Dislocation

★☆☆☆☆

Dislocation was once the stuff of excitement. Today, it barely recognises its own homelessness.

Jennifer Bartlett, In the House at Pippy Houldsworth ★★★★☆

Jennifer Bartlett

In the House

★★★★☆

“Sky”, “roof”, “31”, a mantra turns into paint.

Fake Barn Country at Raven Row ★☆☆☆☆

Fake Barn Country

★☆☆☆☆

This show of nearly thirty artists makes a pitch at many extremes, failing to reach any.

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