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:

Atiéna R Kilfa, Primitive Tales, at Cabinet ★☆☆☆☆

Atiéna R. Kilfa

Primitive Tales

★☆☆☆☆

An uninspired re-staging of the artist’s Camden Arts Centre show.

Material Rites at Gathering ★★★☆☆

Fritsch, Genzken, Oldenburg, Shani, Sherman, Smithson, Thek

Material Rites

★★★☆☆

The instincts are right, but too much makes sense to make sense together.

Ron Nagle, Conniption at Modern Art ★★★★★

Ron Nagle

Conniption

★★★★★

Less is more, as the saying goes. Nagle’s porcelain and resin maquettes are the bare minimum.

Place Revisited at Modern Art ★★★★☆

Richard Aldrich, Prunella Clough, Masanori Tomita, Anh Trần, Terry Winters

Place Revisited

★★★★☆

One suspects the gallery of insider trading.

Aleksandar Denić, The Serbian pavilion in Venice ★★★☆☆

Aleksandar Denić

Exposition Coloniale

★★★☆☆

Denić took the Biennale’s theme literally, as though he was not in on the art world joke.

Gina Fischli, Love Love Love at Soft Opening ★★★★☆

Gina Fischli

Love Love Love

★★★★☆

What good it is to be best in show when the competition is lame, crooked, or outright fake?

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