Michaël Borremans

The Monkey

★★★★★

On until 26 July 2024

Borremans’ anthropomorphic paintings distorted monkey faces have the appearance of porcelain dolls. Alone, they would have been unremarkable. Borremans, however, places these eerie animal portraits next to his only slightly odd pictures of humans. This does to the human figure what Pierre Huyghe’s ape did with the absence in his Human Mask film.

The comparison unnervingly accentuates his people’s outre-mer characteristics. Some seem medieval, others come from Hollywood Westerns. This company gives even an entirely straightforward female nude a set of otherworldly qualities that she alone could not bear.

Borrowings from 17th-century court portraiture mix with 1980s pop. Borremans toys with his subjects, his audience, and with art history. His monkeys quite literally do so with them all when they appear as giant overlords of human life modelled at plaything scale in the painter’s already modestly sized pictures. 


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

Miranda Forrester, Arrival at Tiwani Contemporary ★★★☆☆

Miranda Forrester

Arrival

★★★☆☆

Forrester’s project is timely when foundational concepts like ‘mother’ and their ‘as-though’ counterparts are readily confused.

Alejandro Piñeiro Bello, Entre El Día Y La Noche at Pace ★☆☆☆☆

Alejandro Piñeiro Bello

Entre El Día Y La Noche

★☆☆☆☆

If only they were smaller, Piñera Ballo’s paintings would be a great hit in the shopping centre gallery your ex-army uncle just opened in Surrey. He’s gambling with the family’s savings, you condescend, but so is Pace with their show.…

Asami Shoji et al., Gestures of Resistance at A.I. ★★★★☆

Asami Shoji et al.

Gestures of Resistance

★★★★☆

The figures appear as though in x-ray and helplessly foretell their own ends.

HelenA Pritchard, The Homeless Mind at TJ Boulting ★★★☆☆

HelenA Pritchard

The Homeless Mind

★★★☆☆

Death by debris falling from building façades is an artist’s occupational hazard.

Pope.L, Hospital at South London Gallery ★★★☆☆

Pope.L

Hospital

★★★☆☆

This project lands in the joke section of Animal Farm and not as a prophecy of the Jan 6th insurrection.

Trackie McLeod, FRUIT II at The Bomb Factory ★★☆☆☆

Trackie McLeod

FRUIT II

★★☆☆☆

“Working-class” and “queer” appear in the collateral as obligatory. What doesn’t is “white”.

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