There is a tendency in public cultural projects to parade their “relevance” overtly. This posthumous retrospective of irreverent caricaturist of seaside female sexuality and BANK member Thompson does little but, losing sight of the work itself. The gallery goes all-in on ephemera and paraphernalia from the artist’s archive, leaving Thompson’s paintings – her declared medium of choice “in the era of the powerful female artist and her texts [and] performances” – as an afterthought. 

Even away from the catalogues and posters, Thompson’s disobedient flesh is less than a riot. Granted, the sea, sand, and sun do turn every body into quasi-sexual, quasi-revolutionary subjects. But they’re far from the radical “the moon, the sea, & the matriarch” triad Thompson promises her followers. Sagging buttocks and breasts dance with crab and ice sundaes on her canvases, giving together only a passing impression of some great taboo having been overcome.

The illusion fades with the sunset, having posed its question too lightly. Thompson’s paint is thin as a layer of sunscreen, her line awkward. The rebellion of sex – oh, what is it to be a woman in a world of nothing but! – gets only to slogans.