Thibault Aedy, Dilara Koz

Caressed and Polished and Drained and Washed

★★★☆☆

On until 26 May 2024

What does it mean to put on an exhibition? In a culture where AI can fake installation shots of any object in any interior faster than one can scroll the feed, to bring material substance and human minds together is to enter a competition for permanence. 

Koz’s miniature sticker snapshot records of life, though, and other detritus are printed on unstable thermal transfer paper. The artist shows them off, however, in frames and folders reminiscent of the once powerful institutions of memory such as the archive, the court, or maybe the temple. But these structures are long forgotten. Koz’s images too will fade without further notice.

Aedy’s bodily manifestations place equal faith in technology but hope to avoid such decay. A delicate crystal resin skeleton and a hefty rubber wedge allude to human sex and the messy stuff of reproduction. These objects will outlast the flesh, the tale of Oedipus, and any sepia family portrait. But their synthetic structure forecloses the possibility of life beyond the pop-up show’s closing date.


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

Raed Yassin: Eternal Ghost at Cedric Bardawill ★★☆☆☆

Raed Yassin

Eternal Ghost

★★☆☆☆

Pictures of other people’s children don’t sell.

Ranti Bam: Sacred Groves at South London Gallery

Ranti Bam

Sacred Groves

★★★☆☆

The whimsical freedom of Bam’s overgrown pot plants is an illusion.

Erick Meyenberg, Nos marchábamos, regresábamos siempre, the Mexican pavilion in Venice ★☆☆☆☆

Erick Meyenberg

Nos marchábamos, regresábamos siempre

★☆☆☆☆

Whatever the purpose of this confusion, it’s not to be found in the gallery.

Celia Hempton, Transplant at Phillida Reid ★★★☆☆

Celia Hempton

Transplant

★★★☆☆

Sense finally returns only outside the gallery.

Li Yi-Fan: Screen Melancholy at Taiwanese pavilion in Venice ★★★☆☆

Li Yi-Fan

Screen Melancholy

★★★☆☆

Characters lose themselves in screens-within-screens.

Nicole Eisenman, What Happened at Whitechapel Gallery ★★★☆☆

Nicole Eisenman

What Happened

★★★☆☆

There’s a Bosch hellscape dedicated to Trump and a whole “basket of deplorables” polishing their guns in a prepper cell.

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