Stuart Middleton

The Human Model

★★☆☆☆

On until 20 April 2024

A five-armed tepee made from cheap polyester bedding – barely an iteration of the artist’s 2015 installation which turned the same gallery into a tunnel – plays host to a five-dimensional audio installation. Having captured his audience, Middleton blows raspberries into the microphone. Next door, two totems made from junk furniture, woodworking tools, and grandma’s knitting basket float suspended sideways from the walls.

Spring is time for spring cleaning. But artists are already thinking of summer picnics and lazy Sundays spent in bed or the potting shed. But the mass-produced safety blankets are too on the nose next to the mass-produced retro. An interest in material is core to this practice but Middleton mistrusts his instincts. A recklessly messy prose poem which footnotes the artist’s WhatsApp inbox speaks of “authoritarianism”, “getting lost” and “exhaustion”. It thus gets from nowhere to nowhere, as regrettably does the exhibition.


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

Machine Painting at Modern Art ★★★★☆

Machine Painting

★★★★☆

Ask DALL-E to paint an abstraction and it’ll confidently produce a museum-worthy clone

John Tweddle, Michael Landy: Market Day at The Mayor Gallery ★★★☆☆

John Tweddle, Michael Landy

Market Day

★★★☆☆

Nothing here disrupts the market, freeing the eye from the wallet.

Willie Doherty, Remnant at Matt’s Gallery ★★★☆☆

Willie Doherty

Remnant

★★★☆☆

Doherty’s tragipoetic timing can be masterly.

Jennifer Bartlett, In the House at Pippy Houldsworth ★★★★☆

Jennifer Bartlett

In the House

★★★★☆

“Sky”, “roof”, “31”, a mantra turns into paint.

Roni Horn: Seizure of Hope at Hauser and Wirth ★★★★☆

Roni Horn

Seizure of Hope

★★★★☆

Burroughs was right: language is a virus.

The Music is Black at V&A East ★★☆☆☆

The Music is Black: A British Story

★★☆☆☆

Can there be a “black British music” without Britain or blackness?

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