Yin Xiuzhen

Heart to Heart

★★☆☆☆

On until 3 May 2026

Can a contemporary art institution dedicated to showcasing the work of ‘international’ artists credibly critique globalisation? Xiuzhen remediates commodities, turning second-hand fabrics into ‘immersive’ experiences, concrete building blocks into objects of speculation, and, as a side-effect, all mass-market goods into high-status ideas. She is, in other words, the gallery’s quintessential supply chain contractor.

Xiuzhen’s fabric installations show up the seamlessness of air travel and sameness of ‘global cities’ which render moving between them as futile as driving to the shopping mall in the next town in search of inspiration. This revelation was, sadly, lost on the artists and failed to stop the art shippers in their tracks. Xiuzhen’s chagrin is only for Beijing; London’s lot remains made in China.


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

Hannah Black: HUSH MR GIANT at Arcadia Missa ★☆☆☆☆

Hannah Black

HUSH MR GIANT

★☆☆☆☆

What’s wrong with rights makes no right with painting.

Simon Moretti et al, Hereafter at Swedenborg Society ★★★★★

Simon Moretti et al.

Hereafter

★★★★★

A Platonic hierarchy of forms rules this enigmatic exhibition.

Shu Lea Cheang at Project Native Informant ★★☆☆☆

Shu Lea Cheang

Scifi New Queer Cinema, 1994-2023

★★☆☆☆

With material this gratuitously explicit and a curator this absent, it’s a miracle that this project wasn’t shut down by the licencing, or indeed art-historical authorities.

Tyler Eash, All the World’s Horses at Nicoletti ★★☆☆☆

Tyler Eash

All the World's Horses

★★☆☆☆

The artist must choose which ground is best ceded.

William S. Burroughs at October Gallery

William S. Burroughs

★★☆☆☆

Burroughs should be sexy, right?

Some May Work as Symbols at Raven Row ★★★★☆

Some May Work as Symbols: Art Made in Brazil, 1950s–70s

★★★★☆

Art history can catch modernity in splitting from the past and thus from itself.

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