Elli Antoniou, Ali Glover, Richard Dean Hughes

things fall apart; the centre cannot hold

★★★★☆

Curated by Kollektiv Collective
On until 26 January 2024

Despite this gallery’s modest size, it takes more than a moment to note that one is in an exhibition. This is only partly because the space is also a bookshop: Ali Glover turned the showroom interior walls inside out. This gesture makes for a peculiarly sterile building site and an adventure playground for two others. 

Elli Antoniou’s drawings in metal rendered on steel panels with the aid of an angle grinder are thrillingly disorientating. The internal reflections of these slivery surfaces defy the picture plane. One blink of the eye reveals barbed wire and a planetary system. A second gives way to a whole new cosmos.

Echoing this doubt, Richard Dean Hughes’ resin cast bedding is half NHS waiting room, half luxury Egyptian cotton. Beads of glass strewn across these forms point to some dramatic fracture while sheets of newspaper suggest that it is long in the past.

These works could bear witness to the birth of a star or the heat death of the universe. The curators, sadly, don’t want to know which. This sends Glover to Sisyphean toil while letting Antoniou and Hughes chase myths of their own making.


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

Prem Sahib: Kin at Phillida Reid ★★★★☆

Prem Sahib

Kin

★★★★☆

Animal pity turns into animal cruelty, and bang, the mutt’s a goner.

Dominique Fung, (Up)Rooted, at Massimo de Carlo ★★☆☆☆

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(Up)Rooted

★★☆☆☆

All this tries to be macabre and surreal like in Bosch or Miyazaki but is instead laughably twee.

Trevor Yeung, Hong Kong in Venice ★★★☆☆

Trevor Yeung

Courtyard of Attachments

★★★☆☆

This fishbowl universe is easy sea comfort but ultimately no sushi.

Dan Guthrie: Empty Alcove / Rotting Figure at Chisenhale ★★☆☆☆

Dan Guthrie

Empty Alcove / Rotting Figure

★★☆☆☆

A culture built on iconoclasm will eventually need to create images of its own.

Wilhelm Sasnal at Sadie Coles ★★★☆☆

Wilhelm Sasnal

★★★☆☆

Only in flights of anger does this vision come close to becoming believable.

Leonardo Drew, Ubiquity II at South London Gallery ★★☆☆☆

Leonardo Drew

Ubiquity II

★★☆☆☆

There are many ways to misunderstand entropy.

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