Paulina Olowska

Squelchy Garden Mules and Mamunas

★★★★☆

On until 6 January 2024

In this season’s fad for staging mythical woodland scenes in the gallery, Olowska’s project stands out for using the human form unadulterated. In outsized oil paintings, paper collages, and even on mannequins, Olowska models the forest adventures of a cast of five stereotypically Slavic children. They climb trees, sail down the mountain river on log rafts, and forage about in late winter landscapes. A series of quirky video objects set in hand-carved frames typical of Tatra mountain handicraft has them prostrated for the camera and provides a wild soundtrack to the exhibition.

Olowska is known for her investment in the mountain mythos and the 1930s artist villa in Poland which she renovated has inspired such interest in numerous others, including some of Europe’s best-known art collectors. But that the folk rituals – the springtime drowning of Marzanna, the straw effigy of winter and death, for example – flagged up by the gallery text check out does not compensate for the exhibition’s lacklustre curation. It should be within the resources of Pace and Olowska’s experience to advance her legend beyond the discretely marketable. Presented without context, the work enchants little.


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

Aleksandar Denić, The Serbian pavilion in Venice ★★★☆☆

Aleksandar Denić

Exposition Coloniale

★★★☆☆

Denić took the Biennale’s theme literally, as though he was not in on the art world joke.

I’m so gay for you at Miłość ★★☆☆☆

I'm so gay for you

★★☆☆☆

This “celebration of queerness” is no orgy

Alejandro Piñeiro Bello, Entre El Día Y La Noche at Pace ★☆☆☆☆

Alejandro Piñeiro Bello

Entre El Día Y La Noche

★☆☆☆☆

If only they were smaller, Piñera Ballo’s paintings would be a great hit in the shopping centre gallery your ex-army uncle just opened in Surrey. He’s gambling with the family’s savings, you condescend, but so is Pace with their show.…

Choon Mi Kim, ACID—FREEEE at Ginny on Frederick ★☆☆☆☆

Choon Mi Kim

ACID—FREEEE

★☆☆☆☆

Some forms of abstraction simply scream ‘my kid could have made that’.

Șerban Savu, The Romanian Pavilion in Venice ★★★★☆

Șerban Savu

What Work Is

★★★★☆

This Elysium is part panel house block, half Roman ruin

Herman Chong, The Book of Equators at Amanda Wilkinson ★★☆☆☆

Herman Chong

The Book of Equators

★★☆☆☆

Chong was probably reading some epic while painting his Equator pictures.

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