Marina Xenofontos

Public Domain

★★★☆☆

On until 30 December 2023

There’s an unfortunate ‘emerging artist’ vibe to this handful of readymade sculptures and not only because the show is part of a commercial “emerging artist” prize. Xenofontos replaced the gallery’s door with one salvaged from a mid-range 1980s Greek apartment building. Its lock is broken. In the vestibule, a fragment of an industrial ventilation system periodically spins up. It stops soon after. A stack of mass-market plastic garden chairs finds a home in the corner. They failed quality control. Two chains made of silver walking sticks hang from the high ceiling. They’re too weak to support anything. The titles of these works allude to class, industry, and royalty. But all this is nostalgia, and nothing’s a challenge.

A series of unassuming pieces based on the evacuation plans of civic buildings, presented separately in a darkened room, bring a dose of hazard which was missing thus far. Each is a constellation, quite literally, of LEDs that occasionally flash to reveal images of eyes and ears. But this is a put-on, one imagines, to capture the visitors’ faces. This non-consensual game of blind hide-and-seek cuts through the public domain more than Xenofontos’ wistful recollections in the rest of the show.


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

Celia Hempton, Transplant at Phillida Reid ★★★☆☆

Celia Hempton

Transplant

★★★☆☆

Sense finally returns only outside the gallery.

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.

Leonardo Drew, Ubiquity II at South London Gallery ★★☆☆☆

Leonardo Drew

Ubiquity II

★★☆☆☆

There are many ways to misunderstand entropy.

Ghada Amer, QR CODES REVISITED—LONDON at Goodman ★★☆☆☆

Ghada Amer

QR CODES REVISITED—LONDON

★★☆☆☆

This invites a game of proofreading, in hope that Amer maliciously inserted a greengrocer’s apostrophe into de Beauvoir’s mind.

Aziza Kadyri, the Uzbekistan pavilion in Venice ★★★★☆

Aziza Kadyri

Don't Miss the Cue

★★★★☆

This dissonance might be intentional. If it isn’t, so much for the better.

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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