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Linder’s second-wave feminist propositions were ruthlessly superseded.

Riar Rizaldi, Mirage at Gasworks ★★★☆☆

Riar Rizaldi

Mirage

Mirage

★★★☆☆

When an artist thinks he’s understood quantum mechanics, he doesn’t. How will he know if he knows god?

Lutz Bacher, AYE! at Raven Row ★★★★☆

Lutz Bacher

AYE!

AYE!

★★★★☆

There’s joy in repetition. There’s joy in repetition. There’s joy in repetition. There’s joy in repetition. There’s joy in repetition. There’s joy in repetition.

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

Matthew Barney

SECONDARY: light lens parallax

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.

Diego Marcon, Dolle at Sadie Coles HQ ★★★☆☆

Diego Marcon

Dolle

Dolle

★★★☆☆

Idle work became indistinguishable from leisure, vegetative time-passing from family life.

Alia Farid, Elsewhere at Chisenhale ★★★☆☆

Alia Farid

Elsewhere

Elsewhere

★★★☆☆

There is no answer in the work. Its cause and the object become enmeshed in a bland, exoticized mess. 

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