Yuki Nakayama

After the Rain

★☆☆☆☆

On until 2 June 2024

Can an installation be too site-specific? Even without the help of an artist, this gallery’s quirky interior could not conceal the evidence of the site’s former life as an upscale spa. The showroom was once the steam room and the luxury marble floors tickled the feet of swimmers rather than entice would-be collectors. 

Nakayama’s sculptures and paintings echo handrails, lane lines, and life rings, as if to tempt the patron’s mind to the riviera with beach sand and sailboats. These fixtures were once useful. Today, the artist’s facile interventions only expose the gimmick.


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

Leonardo Drew, Ubiquity II at South London Gallery ★★☆☆☆

Leonardo Drew

Ubiquity II

★★☆☆☆

There are many ways to misunderstand entropy.

Roland Knowlden: Negations at House Work Presents ★★★☆☆

Roland Knowlden

Negations

★★★☆☆

An exhausted porcupine and an architectural war plan.

Women in Revolt! at Tate ★★★☆☆

Women in Revolt!

★★★☆☆

There’s a room for female labour, a corner for childbirth, one for black women, and a section for lesbians. This is as close to nuance as Tate gets today.

Linder, Danger Came Smiling at Hayward Gallery ★★★★☆

Linder

Danger Came Smiling

★★★★☆

Linder’s second-wave feminist propositions were ruthlessly superseded.

Ranti Bam: Sacred Groves at South London Gallery

Ranti Bam

Sacred Groves

★★★☆☆

The whimsical freedom of Bam’s overgrown pot plants is an illusion.

George Rouy: REPRISE at Hannah Barry ★★★☆☆

George Rouy

REPRISE

★★★☆☆

Rouy’s mid-mortem group portraits betray timidity when faced with their own image.

×