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:

Vinca Petersen, Me, Us and Dogs at Edel Assanti ★★★☆☆

Vinca Petersen

Me, Us and Dogs

Me, Us and Dogs

★★★☆☆

Close up, Petersen’s innocents today conjure ideas of redneck resistance. At scale, of state-marketed utopia. The middle ground is envy.

Talar Aghabshian, Solace of the Afterimage at Marfa’ at The Approach ★★☆☆☆

Talar Aghbashian

Solace of the Afterimage

Solace of the Afterimage

★★☆☆☆

The carpet dealer gallerist’s zeal reveals the work’s lamentable inadequacy. 

Deimantas Narkevičus, The Fifer at Maureen Paley ★★☆☆☆

Deimantas Narkevičus

The Fifer

The Fifer

★★☆☆☆

In the age of the decolonial, this is as quaint as it is outmoded

Tesfaye Urgessa, The Ethiopian Pavilion in Venice ★★★★★

Tesfaye Urgessa

Prejudice and Belonging

Prejudice and Belonging

★★★★★

Urgessa’s figures are contorted in love, death, or merely life.

Sosa Joseph, Pennungal at David Zwirner ★★★★★

Sosa Joseph

Pennungal: Lives of women and girls

Pennungal: Lives of women and girls

★★★★★

The night, finally, recognises despair and witnesses infanticide.”

Sylvie Fleury, S.F. at Sprüth Magers ★★★☆☆

Sylvie Fleury

S.F.

S.F.

★★★☆☆

In Fleury’s car workshop cum womenswear boutique, everything is ready-made and ready-to-wear. But you can’t touch any of it and you certainly can’t afford it.

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