Rose Finn-Kelcey

Suit of Lights

★★★★☆

On until 12 April 2025

The challenge which the late Finn-Kelcey’s work posed to sex and gender roles in the 1970s and 80s seems quaint today. The brand of feminism archived in her studio self-portraits as a bull matador and a casino croupier has since both proclaimed total victory and continues to make a muted demand for parity. The exhibition’s sensitive display in local-art-centre retro exposes that project’s breakdown.

But making it ‘live’ again, as Finn-Kelcey’s performances once may have done is a different challenge. Snapshots and scripts of her 1976 durational gallery lock-in with a pair of magpies are simply no match for Beuys’ time with the coyote. That the art historian at whom this display is aimed cannot agree is the movement’s tragedy.


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

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Empty Alcove / Rotting Figure

★★☆☆☆

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Film studies lost to mobile video; Dean phones it in.

Tamara Henderson, Green in the Grooves at Camden Art Centre ★★★★☆

Tamara Henderson

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The whole thing feels like a remake of Wind in the Willows directed by a garden gnome.

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Joanne Burke

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★★★☆☆

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★★★☆☆

These ideas can’t last beyond the pop-up show’s closing date.

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