Ron Nagle

Conniption

★★★★★

On until 6 January 2024

Less is more, as the saying goes. Nagle’s porcelain and resin maquettes, none larger than a shoe box, are the bare minimum. The sculptures gesture at fantasy worlds in the making. One has an erupting volcano, another the beach. Some are cross-sections of domains filled with gold ore and cumulus clouds. Each is a land promised.

But it’s the eighth day in this multiverse and these worlds are unfinished, as though assembled by a video game designer in a hurry. The volumes and shapes are only roughly to scale. The copy-and-paste textures are the materials’ default and merely trick the eye. Their setting, as though in an austere but high-end jewellery store, completes the illusion. It’s all good enough and as good as it gets. The only snag is that this bliss gives way to rage every Monday.


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

Slawn at Saatchi Yates ★★☆☆☆

Slawn

★★☆☆☆

Do you like KAWS but find him too expensive?

Xie Nanxing, Hello, Portrait! at Thomas Dane ★★★★☆

Xie Nanxing

Hello, Portrait!

★★★★☆

Looking at Xie’s portraits is a little like wearing a virtual reality headset over only one eye.

Poppy Jones, Solid Objects at Herald St ★★★★☆

Poppy Jones

Solid Objects

★★★★☆

The lightness of the painter’s gesture cries out for a sledgehammer that would relieve the viewer of his doubt.

Milly Thompson, My Body Temperature is Feeling Good at Goldsmiths CCA ★★☆☆☆

Milly Thompson

My Body Temperature is Feeling Good

★★☆☆☆

Oh, what is it to be a woman in a world of nothing but!

Paulina Olowska at Pace ★★★★☆

Paulina Olowska

Squelchy Garden Mules and Mamunas

★★★★☆

It should be within the resources of Pace and Olowska’s experience to advance her legend beyond the discretely marketable.

Linder, Danger Came Smiling at Hayward Gallery ★★★★☆

Linder

Danger Came Smiling

★★★★☆

Linder’s second-wave feminist propositions were ruthlessly superseded.

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