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.

Karrabing Film Collective, Night Fishing with Ancestors at Goldsmiths CCA ★☆☆☆☆

Karrabing Film Collective

Night Fishing with Ancestors

★☆☆☆☆

Little separates this display from a human zoo complete with curators who occasionally kettle-prod the once noble savage into a spectacular rage.

Genuine Fake Premium Economy at ICA ★★★☆☆

Jenna Bliss, Buck Ellison, Jasmine Gregory

Genuine Fake Premium Economy

★★★☆☆

What would it take for an artist to take control of the means of aesthetic production?

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

Tamara Henderson

Green in the Grooves

★★★★☆

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

things fall apart; the centre cannot hold at Tabula Rasa ★★★★☆

Elli Antoniou, Ali Glover, Richard Dean Hughes

things fall apart; the centre cannot hold

★★★★☆

These works could bear witness to the birth of a star or the heat death of the universe. The curators don’t know which.

Oisín Byrne, Not Marble at Amanda Wilkinson ★★☆☆☆

Oisín Byrne

Not Marble

★★☆☆☆

Byrne has a type. Or rather, he’ll paint you into one.

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