Will Gabaldón

Flicker

★★★☆☆

On until 9 November 2024

Gabaldón reinvents the pastoral for the Instagram generation. A dozen of his compact, square, and near-monochrome oil landscapes punctuate the gallery’s walls. Examining them in the round, one loses track of where the sequence began as though it were an infinite scroll. Two runs around, however, and the painter’s trick becomes clear: his colour palettes are presets, the paint’s texture optimised by algorithmic trial and error. Even the tree forms come from a 3D object catalogue.

These features are distillates of Impressionism’s rarest forms and Gabaldón has emerald and gold at his disposal. Yet his pictures insist that they owe art history little and the charade is for nothing. This trick just about works in its intended medium (@willgabaldon), less so in the gallery. 


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

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

Abdullah Al Saadi

Sites of Memory, Sites of Amnesia

★★★☆☆

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

Anna Glantz, Lichens at Approach ★★★☆☆

Anna Glantz

Lichens

★★★☆☆

The clues that Glantz leaves on her surfaces are also traps. There are either too many or not quite enough to follow or fall into. 

Xie Nanxing, Hello, Portrait! at Thomas Dane ★★★★☆

Xie Nanxing

Hello, Portrait!

★★★★☆

Looking at Xie’s portraits is a little like wearing a virtual reality headset over only one eye.

Julia Maiuri, Yesterday & The End at Workplace ★☆☆☆☆

Julia Maiuri

Yesterday & The End

★☆☆☆☆

One can only imagine that some unconscious loathing of postmen motivated this project.

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.

Odoteres Ricardo de Ozias at David Zwirner ★★★☆☆

Odoteres Ricardo de Ozias

★★★☆☆

These images are perfectly charming even to a viewer possessed of a cold anthropological eye. The troubling part is in realising just how far ‘outside’ the ideas are.

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