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:

Lydia Gifford, Low Anchored Cloud at Alma Pearl ★★☆☆☆

Lydia Gifford

Low Anchored Cloud

★★☆☆☆

Oil paint applied so thickly that it’s a miracle the canvases don’t bring the gallery walls down with them

Odoteres Ricardo de Ozias at David Zwirner ★★★☆☆

Odoteres Ricardo de Ozias

★★★☆☆

These images are perfectly charming even to a viewer possessed of a cold anthropological eye. The troubling part is in realising just how far ‘outside’ the ideas are.

Teewon Ahn and Ibrahim Meïté Sikely at Gianni Manhattan and P21 at Project Native Informant ★★★☆☆

Teewon Ahn and Ibrahim Meïté Sikely

★★★☆☆

These works are as garish as they are fun to look at.

Trevor Yeung, Soft Ground, at Gasworks ★★☆☆☆

Trevor Yeung

Soft Ground

★★☆☆☆

It’s stressful enough to fuck in the forest for fear of passers-by or the police; imagine having to also look out for curators.

Alia Farid, Elsewhere at Chisenhale ★★★☆☆

Alia Farid

Elsewhere

★★★☆☆

There is no answer in the work. Its cause and the object become enmeshed in a bland, exoticized mess. 

Aria Dean, Abattoir at ICA ★★★☆☆

Aria Dean

Abattoir

★★★☆☆

Visuals of her own making overpower the artist.

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