Teewon Ahn and Ibrahim Meïté Sikely

★★★☆☆

On until 17 February 2024

Forcing a Seoul gallery to share space with a Viennese one seems a little ungenerous of this London venue when the two artists’ projects are so idiosyncratic. Meïté Sikely’s acrylic canvases mix fantasy daemons with everyday slogans in the manner of DC Comics and sub-Saharan advertising murals. It’s half William Blake, bit strip-mall, part superhero film set. Ahn’s menacing cat pictures in which the artist’s pet plots his revenge against the human race are peak YouTube cuteness restaged for the CSI morgue. But when the same mutt jumps from the canvas and assumes distorted sculptural forms, the threat of his claw is but a lame joke.

These works are as garish as they are fun to look at. But experienced without the mediation of a phone screen, their exuberance is jarring. Such overstimulation is the host gallery’s brand as post-internet art’s dealer of choice. It would have been more rewarding to pursue only one of these plots.


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

Linder, Danger Came Smiling at Hayward Gallery ★★★★☆

Linder

Danger Came Smiling

Danger Came Smiling

★★★★☆

Linder’s second-wave feminist propositions were ruthlessly superseded.

Harmony Korine, Aggressive Dr1fter Part II at Hauser & Wirth ★★☆☆☆

Harmony Korine

Aggressive Dr1fter Part II

Aggressive Dr1fter Part II

★★☆☆☆

The garish colours which may have carried the story in cinema here are unfitting of their new medium.

Phung-Tien Pham, doesn’t work at Project Native Informant ★★☆☆☆

Phung-Tien Pham

doesn't work

doesn't work

★★☆☆☆

Fad aesthetics for fad ideas.

Chronoplasticity at Raven Row ★☆☆☆☆

Chronoplasticity

Chronoplasticity

★☆☆☆☆

This may have been a good joke but it’s just too exhausting to look at.

Anna Glantz, Lichens at Approach ★★★☆☆

Anna Glantz

Lichens

Lichens

★★★☆☆

The clues that Glantz leaves on her surfaces are also traps. There are either too many or not quite enough to follow or fall into. 

Vinca Petersen, Me, Us and Dogs at Edel Assanti ★★★☆☆

Vinca Petersen

Me, Us and Dogs

Me, Us and Dogs

★★★☆☆

Close up, Petersen’s innocents today conjure ideas of redneck resistance. At scale, of state-marketed utopia. The middle ground is envy.

×