TJ Wilcox

Hiding in Plain Sight

★★☆☆☆

On until 2 October 2024

Vanity proceeds in circles. In the 1920s, the Irish designer Gray built herself a villa on the French Riviera. She and the structure would have become icons, but a more famous architect initially took the spotlight. It thus took a hundred years for a trust to turn the building into a tourist attraction. 

Why we might care is not obvious. Heritage projects often commission artists to “research” and twist complex narratives into marketing collateral. The history revisionist Wilcox made a two-projector film for Gray’s tiny home cinema. A docu-fiction track meets Baudelaire in his frame, laying the ground for some greater legend. 

This trivia is too tiresome to fact-check and should have stayed on the French coast. Only vanity can explain the film’s London outing. The garishly blue, metallic still prints don’t even make for good postcards.


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

Thibault Aedy, Dilara Koz at Filet ★★★☆☆

Thibault Aedy, Dilara Koz

Caressed and Polished and Drained and Washed

★★★☆☆

These ideas can’t last beyond the pop-up show’s closing date.

Justin Caguiat, Dreampop at Modern Art ★★★★☆

Justin Caguiat

Dreampop

★★★★☆

This is the sort of exhibition that makes a critic question the quality of their judgment.

Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum, It Will End In Tears at Barbican Curve ★★☆☆☆

Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum

It Will End In Tears

★★☆☆☆

With the right lighting, this story could be a mid-century colonial classic.

Botond Keresztesi, NPC (No-one Paints Chrysopoeia) at Seventeen ★★★☆☆

Botond Keresztesi

NPC (No-one Paints Chrysopoeia)

★★★☆☆

There is no “too much” in this fantasy meme game.

Mandy El-Sayegh, Interiors at Thaddeus Ropac ★★☆☆☆

Mandy El-Sayegh

Interiors

★★☆☆☆

For the abundance of material, there simply aren’t enough ideas in the exhibition to go around these Mayfair interiors.

Yoko Ono at Tate ★★★☆☆

Yoko Ono

Music of the Mind

★★★☆☆

This show will sell tickets. But it won’t change the weather.

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