All the World's Horses

★★☆☆☆

On until 13 January 2024

I saw this show mid-install and the gallerist’s talk of identity politics hardly served the work’s best interests. But even under ideal conditions, the photo tableaux documenting this Goldsmiths-trained artist’s journey to his Native American roots would have likely annoyed me. The aura of these works doesn’t bridge continents. If they serve the artist’s project of “reindigenization”, it’s only as a grift. 

But Eash’s sculptures – assemblages of bull horn, shotgun cartridges, and wicker – jarred somewhat less. His painterly abstraction on cowhide – halfway between a tie-dye and a Rorschach ink blot – finally broke from his ideological bounds, as only an animal might. But for this world to be worth rebuilding, the artist must choose which ground is best ceded.


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

Stuart Middleton, The Human Model at Carlos/Ishikawa ★★☆☆☆

The Human Model

★★☆☆☆

An interest in material is core to this practice but Middleton mistrusts his instincts.

Abdullah Al Saadi, Sites of Memory, Sites of Amnesia, UAE pavilion in Venice ★★★☆☆

Sites of Memory, Sites of Amnesia

★★★☆☆

The exhibition’s user experience rivals that of the Apple Store.

Avery Singer, Free Fall at Hauser & Wirth ★★☆☆☆

Free Fall

★★☆☆☆

This show would be better without the baggage of the artist’s personal story and even better without the Twin Towers altogether.

Klara Lidén, Square Moon at Sadie Coles ★★☆☆☆

Square Moon

★★☆☆☆

This isn’t Times Square in a blackout.

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

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.

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

Interiors

★★☆☆☆

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

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