Nikita Gale

Blur Ballad

★★☆☆☆

On until 9 December 2023

‘Retinal’ was once an epithet for art that pleased the eye but didn’t reach the brain or the heart. Gale wants to reclaim it by making art about retinas themselves. The exhibition is a minimalistic sound-and-light show about a visit to the optician’s, only that Gale’s spectacles are literally four-eyes and you can’t read any of the letters on the charts however hard you try. 

Gale trained as an anthropologist, and this shows. The works try to speak to technology and its play with the human – or the other way around – but are stuck at that facile gadget and gimmick stage. Even though the project brings together a few unusual tricks, they are disjointed and leave little for the eye to linger on. Is ‘cerebral’ a compliment?


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

The Ear is the Eye of the Soul, Holy See pavilion in Venice ★★★☆☆

Alexander Kluge et al.

The Ear is the Eye of the Soul

★★★☆☆

Nuns singing, musicological trivia, and Comic Sans.

Ed Webb-Ingall, A Bedroom for Everyone at PEER ★☆☆☆☆

Ed Webb-Ingall

A Bedroom for Everyone

★☆☆☆☆

How can art improve the lives of communities? Wrong answers only.

Michaël Borremans, The Monkey at David Zwirner ★★★★★

Michaël Borremans

The Monkey

★★★★★

Borremans toys with his subjects, his audience, and with art history.

Yuki Nakayama, After the Rain at A.I. Gallery ★☆☆☆☆

Yuki Nakayama

After the Rain

★☆☆☆☆

Can an installation be too site-specific?

Women in Revolt! at Tate ★★★☆☆

Women in Revolt!

★★★☆☆

There’s a room for female labour, a corner for childbirth, one for black women, and a section for lesbians. This is as close to nuance as Tate gets today.

SACCADES, Leo Arnold with Jo Baer at Brunette Coleman ★★★★☆

Leo Arnold with Jo Baer

SACCADES

★★★★☆

One dare not ask for more.

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