Max Hooper Schneider

Twilight at the Earth’s Crust

★★☆☆☆

On until 17 December 2023

Mad Max meets Waterworld in a crossover sequel conceived by a film studio’s marketing department. Hooper Schneider’s dioramas are scenes of bleak undersea struggle. What is left of human civilisation – an old master painting and a bad ‘80s sitcom – persists only at the mercy of nature that’s out of control. Sea creatures have evolved into hybrids which the artist bestows with intelligence and purpose. The ocean floor looks like the Garden of Eden, but this environment is hostile, and all humans are banished. The capsules that once saved life have turned into museums.

The end is nigh, it always is. But Hooper Schneider makes it difficult to take this story seriously, despite his scientific and research credentials. The spectre of SpongeBob SquarePants hangs over this apocalypse. If this is intentional, it isn’t funny. If not, as with much eco-art today, tiresome.


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

Dominique Fung, (Up)Rooted, at Massimo de Carlo ★★☆☆☆

Dominique Fung

(Up)Rooted

★★☆☆☆

All this tries to be macabre and surreal like in Bosch or Miyazaki but is instead laughably twee.

Liam Gillick, The Sleepwalkers at Maureen Paley ★★★☆☆

Liam Gillick

The Sleepwalkers

★★★☆☆

Gillick’s practice lacks obviously consistent character, save for it is sparseness of means and the ungraspability of its referents.

Choon Mi Kim, ACID—FREEEE at Ginny on Frederick ★☆☆☆☆

Choon Mi Kim

ACID—FREEEE

★☆☆☆☆

Some forms of abstraction simply scream ‘my kid could have made that’.

Eva Rothschild at Modern Art ★★☆☆☆

Eva Rothschild

★★☆☆☆

These sculptures are too clean, too ordered, and too clever for no good reason.

Linder, Danger Came Smiling at Hayward Gallery ★★★★☆

Linder

Danger Came Smiling

★★★★☆

Linder’s second-wave feminist propositions were ruthlessly superseded.

Megan Rooney, Echoes & Hours at Kettle’s Yard ★★☆☆☆

Megan Rooney

Echoes & Hours

★★☆☆☆

For all this bravado, Rooney’s compositions offer only a very surface experience of abstraction.

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