Nanténé Traoré

She says it's the high energy

★★☆☆☆

On until 17 February 2024

A social media advert targeted at my middle-aged eyes suggested that old retinas lose their ability to register colour. Traoré’s photographs render this sales pitch obsolete. Even when printed in monochrome, these images scream uncontrollably. They are saturated with colour and noxious self-obsession, the kind of aspirational self-harm made glamourous by Goldin and cos-played by Tillmans. Bodies clash with lights in front of Traoré’s Narcissus camera. They do so not for art but for that Instagram algorithm whose promise I must miss out on.

It needn’t have been so. Traoré wants these images to speak with Apollinaire and Rilke, or at least Björk and Pink Floyd. But not one of these correspondents sought life entirely within his or her body. Traoré, a self-professed obsessive storyteller might one day look past such carnal fixation.


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

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.

The last train after the last train at Public ★★★☆☆

The last train after the last train

★★★☆☆

The failed magic tricks in Lyndon Barrois Jr.’s canvases would hang in the final scene of Chinese Roulette in which everyone turns against everyone.

Hannah Tilson, Soft Cut at Cedric Bardawil ★★☆☆☆

Hannah Tilson

Soft Cut

★★☆☆☆

Tilson’s styled self-portraits are an affectation that will take many years of practice to pay off.

Eva Rothschild at Modern Art ★★☆☆☆

Eva Rothschild

★★☆☆☆

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

Adriano Costa, ax-d. us. t at Emalin ★★★☆☆

Adriano Costa

ax-d. us. t

★★★☆☆

Form triumphs over detritus.

David Muenzer, Teen at Final Hot Desert ★★★☆☆

David Muenzer

Teen

★★★☆☆

Muenzer’s messy show bedroom actually is someone’s messy bedroom most nights of the week.

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