Pavel Brăila

On the Thousand and Second Night

★★★★☆

Curated by Adelina Luft
On until 22 November 2026

Who knew that total temporal collapse would manifest magic. Moldova’s first outing in Venice mixes the hackneyed craft of carpet weaving, which one might expect to see in a heritage project of an arriviste nation, with the futuristic might of drones that has become the calling card of China’s techno-cultural displays.

The carpets float in pitch dark, disorienting the audience under with the whirring of motors and gusts of chilling air. With detailed tales from the weavers’ cultures absent, the mind drifts to air warfare that today haunts the lands of a Thousand and One Nights. That we lack the patience for a thousand more is only a pity.


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

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Sibylle Ruppert

Frenzy of the Visible

★★★★☆

This is the fodder of DeviantArt and the last year’s AI engines.

Ebun Sodipo, An Ominous Presence at Soft Opening ★★☆☆☆

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Marc-Aurèle Debut

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★★☆☆☆

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Ranti Bam: Sacred Groves at South London Gallery

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★★★☆☆

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The Imaginary Institution of India at Barbican ★★★★★

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★★★★★

How does a curator tell an unfamiliar history yet evade the museum’ didacticism and the audience’s dulled expectations? Jhaveri’s ambitious review of India’s testing decades at the end of the 20th century could easily have been a torturous sermon: the…

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