Women in Revolt!

★★★☆☆

Curated by Linsey Young
On until 7 April 2024

“In the early 1970s, women were second-class citizens” is as good an excuse for a survey of British 2nd-wave feminism as any. But just like the two decades of social politics and activism it narrates, this encyclopaedic exhibition requires an encyclopaedia to navigate. Not because the story is opaque – many of the works in the show are already familiar – but because the institution’s impulse to streamline its plot – to make history, in other words – demands scrutiny.

The intentions seem honourable and in the exhibition guide, the threads are distinct. There’s a room for labour, a corner for childbirth, one for black women, and a section for lesbians. This is as close to nuance as Tate gets today. But in the gallery, the material is so abundant that a visitor not already acquainted with the arguments might struggle to understand the conflicts that directed and often broke the march of progress which the museum would have us lock step with. 

Counterintuitively, it might have been more productive to exclude the hundreds of pamphlets, zines, and other ephemera and show only those artefacts of the period that somehow already earned their place in the museum store. This would aestheticise, rather than ideologise this history. 


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

Dan Guthrie: Empty Alcove / Rotting Figure at Chisenhale ★★☆☆☆

Dan Guthrie

Empty Alcove / Rotting Figure

★★☆☆☆

The problem for a culture built on iconoclasm is that eventually, it will need to create images of its own. Guthrie is yet to consider this because his image war is still virtual. The subject of his static video installation,…

Aziza Kadyri, the Uzbekistan pavilion in Venice ★★★★☆

Aziza Kadyri

Don't Miss the Cue

★★★★☆

This dissonance might be intentional. If it isn’t, so much for the better.

Milly Thompson, My Body Temperature is Feeling Good at Goldsmiths CCA ★★☆☆☆

Milly Thompson

My Body Temperature is Feeling Good

★★☆☆☆

Oh, what is it to be a woman in a world of nothing but!

Yi To, Terminal Lucidity at Project Native Informant ★★★★☆

Yi To

Terminal Lucidity

★★★★☆

All evidence erodes eventually.

Justin Chance, Motherhood at Ginny on Frederick ★★☆☆☆

Justin Chance

Motherhood

★★☆☆☆

If only he stopped there.

Christopher Aque, Alexandre Khondji at Sweetwater and Studio M ★★★★★

Christopher Aque, Alexandre Khondji

★★★★★

Aesthetic cognition or crossword puzzles only rarely bring such perverse pleasure.

×