Estate of Yiannis Maniatakos

Four Paintings

★★★☆☆

On until 28 September 2024

If selling art relies on telling the artist’s mythos, this gallery has struck gold with the estate of the seabed crawler Maniatakos. The man was an acclaimed artisan and amateur sculptor of marble extracted from his home island of Tinos. That alone could earn him a footnote in art history and be enough to turn his archive of “sculptures, photography, and a boat” into an art fair presentation. 

But, bingo, Maniatakos was also a marketable eccentric who spent his summers diving to the ocean floor with a breathing apparatus and waterproof canvas, both of his own invention. These trips gave rise to a murky, textured chronicle of paintings that bear more resemblance to Etel Adnan landscapes than the sun-kissed idyll postcard a tourist may associate with the Greek island coast. 

These pictures are not abstracts, but their surfaces recorded waves alongside the artist’s vantage. One renders the other only half-legible. Examining the paintings in the gallery’s bright lights doesn’t lift their mystery, either. The gallery’s press release, however, follows the tide blindly.


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

Iris Touliatou, Outfits at PEER ★★★☆☆

Iris Touliatou

Outfits

★★★☆☆

These gestures remind the gallery that it is a social space. Unfortunately, they also inadvertently point to its sorry end.

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.

Gabriel Hartley, Floorlines at Seventeen ★★★★★

Gabriel Hartley

Floorlines

★★★★★

Desire breeds introspection. Desire breeds mistrust.

Cui Jie, Thermal Currents at Pilar Corrias ★☆☆☆☆

Cui Jie

Thermal Landscapes

★☆☆☆☆

The exhibition feels like a lecture on climate change sponsored by the designers of The Line, Saudi Arabia’s dystopian plan for a 110-mile linear city in the desert.

Sophie Huckfield: Lady Ludd at Outpost, Norwich ★★☆☆☆

Sophie Huckfield

Lady Ludd

★★☆☆☆

Huckfield crowbars made-up heroes into past revolutions to pose as the saviour in the next one.

Your Ghosts Are Mine at Palazzo Franchetti ★★★☆☆

Your Ghosts Are Mine: Expanded Cinemas, Amplified Voices

★★★☆☆

This attempt at building pan-Arabic film aesthetics falls prey to the art technician’s trickery.

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