Pauline Boty

A Portrait

★★★★☆

On until 24 February 2024

Pauline Boty was half pop artist, half actress, and in her mythology half pin-up it girl. The swinging ’60s would have been the perfect time for someone of Boty’s charisma to make a career of three halves. But she died young barely a decade into her practice, leaving a legacy of painting, collage, stained glass, and TV drama for speculation.

Although Boty was posthumously quite the rage in Poland’s soc-realist ’80s, it wasn’t until the again roaring ’90s that interest in her surviving oeuvre hit the UK art scene. Gazeli’s modest exhibition now brings a handful of Boty’s works – somewhat chaotic paper and gouache collages and oil paintings that could have been collages too – together with archives and tributes.

This mixes the woman and her legend, but without the air of mystery the artist enjoyed during her lifetime. Today, when a creator’s presence in their work is subject to TikTok’s terms of service, Boty’s multiple faces are challenging. She poses seductively on the cover of Men Only and in Michael Ward’s photographs, she lifts her dress for the camera. Such emancipation may have been a strategy for Pop art’s leading female founder. Today, its prompts aesthetic suspicion.


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

Bhenji Ra, Biraddali Dancing on the Horizon at Auto Italia ★☆☆☆☆

Bhenji Ra

Biraddali Dancing on the Horizon

★☆☆☆☆

Such work was once a mere grift. Now, it is an outright stitch-up.

Francesca DiMattio, Wedgwood at Pippy Houldsworth ★★★☆☆

Francesca DiMattio

Wedgwood

★★★☆☆

In DiMattio’s giant ceramics kiln, everyday motifs like sneakers and knickers clash into the ornate Rococo stove and the Victorian China snuff box.

Bitch Magic at Alma Pearl ★★★☆☆

Renate Bertlmann, Cullinan Richards, Ayla Dmyterko, Permindar Kaur, Rebecca Parkin, Tai Shani, Penny Slinger, Georgina Starr, Unyimeabasi Udoh

Bitch Magic

★★★☆☆

There will be no women when this spell breaks. And no need for magic, either.

Nomenclature for the Time Being at Raven Row ★★☆☆☆

Nomenclature for the Time Being

★★☆☆☆

This is not how good ideas spread.

Ksenia Pedan, Revision at Cell Project Space ★★★★☆

Ksenia Pedan

Revision

★★★★☆

Pedan’s paintings would rather be anything but.

Julia Maiuri, Yesterday & The End at Workplace ★☆☆☆☆

Julia Maiuri

Yesterday & The End

★☆☆☆☆

One can only imagine that some unconscious loathing of postmen motivated this project.

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