Yorgos Prinos

Prologue to a Prayer

★★★★☆

On until 9 November 2024

Something troubles the men in Prinos’ street photographs. They stand lined up, tensely, their heads bowed as though at a state funeral. Another one, opposite, holds a silver-plated ornament. Is this the ceremonial object of their veneration? What tragedy or triumph does this scene mark? 

It takes a moment to understand that these portraits were snatched separately and assembled only in the gallery. Prinos’ frames are precise, tight, and formal, as though the street were his studio. A found image curio from the tabloid’s ‘funnies’ section attached to the gallery’s window breaks the spell, only to make the others more daunting.


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

Alvaro Barrington, Grandma’s Land at Sadie Coles ★★★☆☆

Alvaro Barrington

Grandma’s Land

★★★☆☆

The party slumps into a half-voiced political complaint and never recovers. This is what happens when instead of living culture, we ‘celebrate’ it.

Place Revisited at Modern Art ★★★★☆

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

Place Revisited

★★★★☆

One suspects the gallery of insider trading.

Lydia Gifford, Low Anchored Cloud at Alma Pearl ★★☆☆☆

Lydia Gifford

Low Anchored Cloud

★★☆☆☆

Oil paint applied so thickly that it’s a miracle the canvases don’t bring the gallery walls down with them

Joseph Awuah-Darko, How is your day going? at Ed Cross ★★☆☆☆

Joseph Awuah-Darko

How is your day going?

★★☆☆☆

This project relies on layers of gimmicks and, sadly, they show through Awuah-Darko’s thick palette knife impasto.

James Welling and Bernd & Hilla Becher at Maureen Paley ★★★☆☆

James Welling and Bernd & Hilla Becher

★★★☆☆

Welling’s veneration of brutalist concrete borders on fetish.

Condo: Zero at Brunette Coleman ★★★★☆

Paride Maria Calcia, Hubert Duprat, Irene Fenara

Condo

★★★★☆

The word ‘organic’ once encompassed forms of matter that were anything but.

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