Oh, the Storm

★☆☆☆☆

On until 13 January 2024

This could be a lazy stockroom show or the greatest selection of the gallery’s works. We’ll never find out, however, because in Rodeo’s quirky tile, brick, and cobblestone Mayfair interior, it’s impossible to tell where a work ends and the wall begins. No amount of close contemplation helps and this exhibition is trying to explain the concept of ‘crazy paving’ to a blind man. Attempting to shut out the excess stimulus of the gallery fabric is so vexing that one longs for the works to either scream in brash colours or to disappear altogether. They do neither, and neither seems like a winning strategy anyway.

Rodeo previously staged charming, intimate, and minimal shows in this space. When ‘site-specific’ has become a dirty concept again, this show is worth seeing for its interior design student failure alone. After the storm, an opportunity to train one’s spatial sensibilities.


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

Jan Gatewood, Group Relations at Rose Easton ★☆☆☆☆

Jan Gatewood

Group Relations

Group Relations

★☆☆☆☆

Such thin metaphors could only have come from LA.

Shu Lea Cheang at Project Native Informant ★★☆☆☆

Shu Lea Cheang

Scifi New Queer Cinema, 1994-2023

Scifi New Queer Cinema, 1994-2023

★★☆☆☆

With material this gratuitously explicit and a curator this absent, it’s a miracle that this project wasn’t shut down by the licencing, or indeed art-historical authorities.

Esteban Jefferson, May 25th, 2020 at Goldsmiths CCA ★★★☆☆

Esteban Jefferson

May 25th, 2020

May 25th, 2020

★★★☆☆

This exhibition is a warning to would-be propagandists: trust art at your peril.

Jennifer Bartlett, In the House at Pippy Houldsworth ★★★★☆

Jennifer Bartlett

In the House

In the House

★★★★☆

“Sky”, “roof”, “31”, a mantra turns into paint.

Claire Fontaine: Show Less at Mimosa House ★★☆☆☆

Claire Fontaine

Show Less

Show Less

★★☆☆☆

Repeat these mantras enough, and the lie becomes art.

Tamara Henderson, Green in the Grooves at Camden Art Centre ★★★★☆

Tamara Henderson

Green in the Grooves

Green in the Grooves

★★★★☆

The whole thing feels like a remake of Wind in the Willows directed by a garden gnome.

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