Marisa Krangwiwat Holmes, Shamiran Istifan, Tasneem Sarkez

Saccharine Symbols

★★★☆☆

On until 20 December 2023

Meaning parts with the image in this exhibition, never to return. Two paintings by Sarkez overlay banal messages (“11:11” and “good morning” in Arabic) on unremarkable street scenes from the Gulf states. Istifan mixes all manner of iconographies – Playboy bunnies, Baroque cherubs, and Wingdings the font – in all manner of media. Kringwiwat Holmes collages vintage mail-order catalogues with photographs and doodles. Post-structuralism triumphs.

All this is intriguing but ultimately impossible to parse because these artists, working in separation, each stage their own assaults on the same symbols and the display does not reveal the rules. What should have been a sinister game of chess – Sarkez provides a board – is instead a frustrating circular reference.


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

Eddie Ruscha, Seeing Frequencies at Cedric Bardawil ★☆☆☆☆

Eddie Ruscha

Seeing Frequencies

★☆☆☆☆

But either the curator or the artist should have known better.

Entangled Pasts at The Royal Academy ★★☆☆☆

Entangled Pasts, 1768–now

★★☆☆☆

Who could have thought that these mantras would turn into rote?

Aleksandar Denić, The Serbian pavilion in Venice ★★★☆☆

Aleksandar Denić

Exposition Coloniale

★★★☆☆

Denić took the Biennale’s theme literally, as though he was not in on the art world joke.

Dominique Fung, (Up)Rooted, at Massimo de Carlo ★★☆☆☆

Dominique Fung

(Up)Rooted

★★☆☆☆

All this tries to be macabre and surreal like in Bosch or Miyazaki but is instead laughably twee.

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.

Auudi Dorsey at PM/AM ★★★★☆

Auudi Dorsey

★★★★☆

Dorsey records the human experience with the true universalism of paint.

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