Sin Wei Kin

Portraits

★★☆☆☆

On until 16 December 2023

This exhibition combines the most vulgar of all art school tropes: juvenile narcissism, NFT kitsch, and mindless referentialism. In five video still portraits, Sin takes the place of art history’s celebrated subjects including Caravaggio’s Narcissus and Man Ray’s Kiki. The characters, distinguished more by their plastic wigs and colourful make-up than their presence, project sombre pensiveness.

But their demand for attention is tiresome because these drag figures are all artifice. Sin, dressed up as Frida Kahlo or Mona Lisa is only formally distinct from the TikTok girls who digitally adorn their faces for likes. In this pictorial metaverse where substance is exchanged for crypto, there is no time for the human and no space for art.


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

Atiéna R Kilfa, Primitive Tales, at Cabinet ★☆☆☆☆

Atiéna R. Kilfa

Primitive Tales

★☆☆☆☆

An uninspired re-staging of the artist’s Camden Arts Centre show.

Alexandre Canonico, Still at Ab Anbar ★★★☆☆

Alexandre Canonico

Still

★★★☆☆

Conanico’s slight structures look like they could take flight at any moment.

Matthew Barney, SECONDARY at Sadie Coles HQ ★★★☆☆

Matthew Barney

SECONDARY: light lens parallax

★★★☆☆

Secondary turns the gallery into an American Football stadium. But all the seats in the house are the cheap seats and the game lacks a cheerleader.

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.

Nick Relph, Fils, ta vision! at Herald St ★☆☆☆☆

Nick Relph

Fils, ta vision!

★☆☆☆☆

There’s little for the eye to hang on and none of the punk culture of Relph’s earlier practice emerges from the works.

Stephen Willats, Time Tumbler at Victoria Miro

Stephen Willats

Time Tumbler

★★★★☆

Willats orders fragments of time, matter, and space into data packets on one side of the flow chart and puts them to use on the other.

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