Riar Rizaldi

Mirage

★★★☆☆

On until 22 December 2024

Rizaldi’s instructional films are aids to miscomprehension. One takes the form of a Hanna-Barbera space alien cartoon. Its saturated colours and muffled dialogue could be a highlight in a ‘70s science classroom. A pantheism subplot throws the lesson, however. The artist hopes we students won’t notice. 

The spin continues on the next screen where a shipwrecked astronaut breathes physics jargon and 15th-century Sufism. Science and world religions dance in a polytheist multiverse. Nothing, sadly, saves our lonely hero.

Rizaldi’s grand unifying theory is as charming as it is confused. The conflict of belief and reason is a 19th-century problem. Throwing vague old maxims at it advances little. When an artist thinks he’s understood quantum mechanics, to twist Richard Feynman’s words, he doesn’t. How will he know if he knows god?


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

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.

Yannis Maniatakos, Four Paintings at Sylvia Kouvali ★★★☆☆

Estate of Yiannis Maniatakos

Four Paintings

★★★☆☆

Examining the paintings in the gallery’s bright lights doesn’t lift their mystery.

Matthew Barney, SECONDARY at Sadie Coles HQ ★★★☆☆

Matthew Barney

SECONDARY: light lens parallax

★★★☆☆

Secondary turns the gallery into an American Football stadium. But all the seats in the house are the cheap seats and the game lacks a cheerleader.

Anastasia Pavlou, Reader at Hot Wheels ★★☆☆☆

Anastasia Pavlou

Reader, Part 2; The Reader Reads Words in Sentences

★★☆☆☆

In this game of aesthetic cognition, the idea which survives is of the artist thinking.

Simon Moretti et al, Hereafter at Swedenborg Society ★★★★★

Simon Moretti et al.

Hereafter

★★★★★

A Platonic hierarchy of forms rules this enigmatic exhibition.

Eva Kot’átková, The Czech pavilion in Venice ★★☆☆☆

Eva Kot’átková

The heart of a giraffe in captivity is twelve kilos lighter

★★☆☆☆

The giraffe’s taxidermied corpse is host to an ideological stunt.

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