Roe Etheridge

Happy Birthday Louise Parker II

★★☆☆☆

On until 28 September 2024

For nearly thirty years, Etheridge has shot fashion, editorial, and what Gagosian calls “studio” photography, as though to avoid the association with “art”. Etheridge was a latecomer to the game of image semiotics. He nonetheless carved out a practice by mashing up symbols and registers. Meticulously styled product shots appear in his viewfinder as readily as candid pin-up girls. Coke bottles share colour spaces with touching family portraits. His folio is so eclectic that when a duck finds its way onto the studio’s infinity curve, nobody flaps a feather.

The success of these images relies on the active disavowal of context beyond their frames. But in this tiny pass-by display, Etheridge’s method finds an extreme. There isn’t enough information in the assembly for the mind to notice what it is not being given. The prints’ glossy richness reigns.


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

Megan Rooney, Echoes & Hours at Kettle’s Yard ★★☆☆☆

Megan Rooney

Echoes & Hours

★★☆☆☆

For all this bravado, Rooney’s compositions offer only a very surface experience of abstraction.

Wilhelm Sasnal at Sadie Coles ★★★☆☆

Wilhelm Sasnal

★★★☆☆

Only in flights of anger does this vision come close to becoming believable.

Will Gabaldón, Flicker at Union Pacific ★★★☆☆

Will Gabaldón

Flicker

★★★☆☆

Gabaldón reinvents the pastoral for the Instagram generation.

The Unfinished Business of Living Together at the Swiss pavilion in Venice ★★★☆☆

Nina Wakeford, et al.

The Unfinished Business of Living Together

★★★☆☆

If the Swiss don’t think they’re free, who is?

George Rouy: REPRISE at Hannah Barry ★★★☆☆

George Rouy

REPRISE

★★★☆☆

Rouy’s mid-mortem group portraits betray timidity when faced with their own image.

Gina Fischli, Love Love Love at Soft Opening ★★★★☆

Gina Fischli

Love Love Love

★★★★☆

What good it is to be best in show when the competition is lame, crooked, or outright fake?

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