Sibylle Ruppert

Frenzy of the Visible

★★★★☆

On until 20 April 2024

Ruppert’s quaint amalgams of the gothic, the erotic, and the extra-human are right up the hills of the uncanny valley. Leather-clad torsos sport marbled bearings. Winged monsters with penis-like tentacles drown in champagne sepia. These scenes are as enticing as they are deadly and their fan-fiction familiarity is as disturbing as their number.

This is the fodder of DeviantArt and the last year’s AI engines. But Ruppert’s charming macabres hail from the 1970s and speak of an apocalypse the artist could have only imagined. This little exhibition thus hedges retro with curio, ultimately withholding the key to this life’s dark obsessions.


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

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.

Laura Lima: The Drawing Drawing at ICA ★★★☆☆

Laura Lima

The Drawing Drawing

★★★☆☆

Not much of anything in particular.

Megan Rooney, Echoes & Hours at Kettle’s Yard ★★☆☆☆

Megan Rooney

Echoes & Hours

★★☆☆☆

For all this bravado, Rooney’s compositions offer only a very surface experience of abstraction.

Mohammed Z. Rahman, A Flame is a Petal at Phillida Reid ★★★☆☆

Mohammed Z. Rahman

A Flame is a Petal

★★★☆☆

Rahman’s zine hand makes this make-believe explicit but not plausible.

Leah Clements: Apophenia at PEER ★★☆☆☆

Leah Clements

Apophenia

★★☆☆☆

It takes a lot to pull off an essay film, and Clements is no essayist.

Freudian Typo at Delfina Foundation ★★☆☆☆

Freudian Typo

Condensed Word, Displaced Flesh

★★☆☆☆

The problem of artists who confuse graphic design with art is that they also mistake sloganeering for critique.

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