Nomenclature for the Time Being

★★☆☆☆

Curated by Imani Mason Jordan
On until 6 September 2026

Raven Row’s ‘impenetrability as a service’ is becoming tiresome. After Christine Kozlov’s conceptualism left audiences rudderless in a history that’s accounted for with clarity elsewhere, this new salvo proposes that ‘making art while black’ needs theory beyond, but somehow still rooted in the racial strife of the past decade.

This isn’t untrue, perhaps, but nothing on show is this theory or capable of giving rise to it even together. Kellard-Jones’s hanging mattress with heirloom medallion is tender, as are Kilfa’s photographs of the blackness of coffee becoming the blackness of the world. But Kirubo’s multimedia hangings are chaos, obscured further by her Vaseline-smeared windows. Sudipo’s ritual-fetishist leather and Holman’s pulled teeth spread geographic confusion. Hassinger’s Duchampian “love” hanging is full of hot air, while Muholi’s outsize retro telephone is no more than a bad joke. What stories might one need to hear down this line to make sense of these pairings?

Only silence answers. Too often, curating in these galleries foregoes the artefact only to fall back on glossy printed verbiage and high install specs. That is not, however, how good ideas spread.


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

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.

Avery Singer, Free Fall at Hauser & Wirth ★★☆☆☆

Avery Singer

Free Fall

★★☆☆☆

This show would be better without the baggage of the artist’s personal story and even better without the Twin Towers altogether.

Joshua Leon, The Missing O and E at Chisenhale Gallery ★☆☆☆☆

Joshua Leon

The Missing O and E

★☆☆☆☆

This embarrassing display indicts today’s second-fiddlers with narcissism and egomania.

Gabriel Hartley, Floorlines at Seventeen ★★★★★

Gabriel Hartley

Floorlines

★★★★★

Desire breeds introspection. Desire breeds mistrust.

Ranti Bam: Sacred Groves at South London Gallery

Ranti Bam

Sacred Groves

★★★☆☆

The whimsical freedom of Bam’s overgrown pot plants is an illusion.

Lydia Gifford, Low Anchored Cloud at Alma Pearl ★★☆☆☆

Lydia Gifford

Low Anchored Cloud

★★☆☆☆

Oil paint applied so thickly that it’s a miracle the canvases don’t bring the gallery walls down with them

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