Pio Abad, Claudette Johnson, Jasleen Kaur, Delaine Le Bas

Turner Prize 2024

★★☆☆☆

On until 16 February 2025

The Turner Prize’s goal is to take the pulse of British contemporary art. One shouldn’t judge it harshly if the patient is dying. This year’s edition, sadly, is dull beyond redemption. Questions of identitarian “struggle” are the show’s sole organising principle. They’re so old hat that even the artists approach them with ennui.

Abad’s once vibrant critiques of his native Philippines’ Marcos regime turned into footnotes in a grey decolonisation textbook. In his latest edition, colonial Britain is to blame for Imelda’s handbag fetish. A sustainable claim, perhaps, but Abad offers no visual proof.

Kaur’s Scottish Indian mixed heritage pound shop is not stupid but it is depressing. Her airy display, like life, has space for prayer bells, family snaps, Irn Bru, and even a giant doily. Assimilation is a dirty word, however, and the gallery’s embrace of mass-produced cultures is entirely partial. 

Le Bas’ presentation has a touch of novelty to it. Dressed entirely in fabric, her rooms turn into big tents in an unsubtle nod to some essential Roma sensibility. Content, however, is fleeting in this labyrinth. A video projection barely registers, the figures are like dolls, and the paint markings barely tell a story. Too heavy to be aethereal, too slight to be immersive, this work only manifests in the curator’s text.

Johnson is the safe hand here, but her desire for safety is the paintings’ downfall. Defining “black woman” would be a life-long task for any artist. Today, Johnson’s practice pleases the art world a little too eagerly. Like with a film’s exit music, therefore, the punters have left the gallery before the paintings challenge the Prize’s hackneyed ideology. 


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

When Forms Come Alive at Hayward Gallery ★★☆☆☆

When Forms Come Alive

★★☆☆☆

This exhibition cannot decide if it’s a tourist attraction or a serious examination of sculpture’s relationship with movement.

France-Lise McGurn, Strawberry at Massimodecarlo ★☆☆☆☆

France-Lise McGurn

Strawberry

★☆☆☆☆

McGurn has created the visual equivalent of elevator music.

Oh, the Storm at Rodeo ★☆☆☆☆

Oh, the Storm

★☆☆☆☆

This exhibitions is trying to explain the concept of ‘crazy paving’ to a blind man. It’s impossible to tell where a work ends and the wall begins.

Yorgos Prinos, Prologue to a Prayer at Hot Wheels ★★★★☆

Yorgos Prinos

Prologue to a Prayer

★★★★☆

Prinos’ frames are precise, tight, and formal, as though the street were his studio.

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.

Patricia Ferguson, Each Little Scar at FILET ★★★★☆

Patricia Ferguson

Each Little Scar

★★★★☆

No medium is better suited to anxiety and dread.

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