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:

Kevin Brisco Jr, But I Hear There Are New Suns at Union Pacific ★★☆☆☆

Kevin Brisco Jr

But I Hear There Are New Suns

★★☆☆☆

I didn’t get to see this show. Perhaps for the best.

Joanne Burke, Oes with works like Esses at Soft Opening ★★★★☆

Joanne Burke

Oes with works like Esses

★★★★☆

Hot metal is that, like water, it spills away from the mould.

looking to the futurepast, we are treading forward, the Bolivian pavilion in Venice ★☆☆☆☆

looking to the futurepast, we are treading forward

★☆☆☆☆

The contemporary is of no interest to a nation whose future is yet to be dug out from the ground.

Tommy Camerno, Delirious at Filet ★★☆☆☆

Tommy Camerno

Delirious

★★☆☆☆

What’s left of the show are stage props that feed adolescent imaginations with false memories of the long-finished party.

Liliane Lijn: Seeds of Tomorrow at Sylvia Kouvali ★★★☆☆

Liliane Lijn

Seeds of Tomorrow

★★★☆☆

Are these dreams, floral fields, or psychedelic visions?

Nanténé Traoré at Sultana and Amanda Wilkinson ★★☆☆☆

Nanténé Traoré

She says it's the high energy

★★☆☆☆

Bodies clash with lights in front of Traoré’s Narcissus camera.

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