Saturday, April 28, 2018
On Thursday I went to seventeen free art exhibitions. Here, very briefly, is what I thought.
Barbican (Curve)
★☆☆ Yto Barrada: Agadir Bodies (until 20 May): Post-earthquake musings. Probably more interesting on Saturdays with added pyjama people.
Newport Street Gallery
★☆☆ John Copeland: Your Heaven Looks Just Like My Hell (until 28 May): I preferred the blurry cosmopolitan murals to his smudged acrylic nudes.
☆☆☆ Rachel Howard: Repetition is Truth – Via Dolorosa (until 28 May): Creamy vertical brushstrokes, the perfect exemplification of "I could have done that".
Photographers Gallery (free before noon)
★★★ Under Cover: A Secret History Of Cross–Dressers (until 3 Jun): Amateur snaps (from 1880 onwards) of pioneers defying gender performance norms.
★★☆ Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize 2018 (until 3 Jun): Eclectic. The four shortlisted artists coincidentally feature a Turner Prize nominee.
Saatchi Gallery
☆☆☆ Known Unknowns (until 24 Jun): The usual sparse set of big sploshy canvases, best viewed at fast walking pace.
Serpentine Gallery
★☆☆ Ian Cheng: Emissaries (until 28 May): Three-part digital myth, videogame style, in half a gallery. I tried getting into it, but no.
★★☆ Sondra Perry: Typhoon coming on (until 20 May): Meanwhile at the Sackler, huge wavy video walls with a hint of slavery. Immersive, but thin.
Tate Britain
★★☆ Anthea Hamilton: The Squash (until 7 Oct): A solo performer wearing a gourd-like head inhabits the terrazzo and acts vegetable. Memorably surreal.
Tate Modern (Tanks)
★★☆ Joan Jonas (until 5 Aug): Free annexe to the current £13 exhibition upstairs. Sparkly eco-aware video-led performance art.
V&A Museum
★★★ Printing a New World: Commercial Graphics in the 1930s (until 19 Aug): A corridorful of 1930s graphics? Hell yes.
★★☆ The Artful Book: 70 Years of The Folio Society (until 1 May): Frontispieces and illustrations from a few select volumes.
★★☆ Without Walls: Disability and Innovation in Building Design (until 21 Oct): Thought-provoking exemplars of universal design.
Whitechapel Gallery
★★☆ Art Capital: Art for Crossrail (until 6 May): Big arty spoilers for December. I think I'm looking forward to Bond Street the most.
★☆☆ ISelf Collection: Bumped Bodies (until 12 Aug): Taking the torso to extremes. Includes breasty rugby balls shoved through a chair.
White Cube (Bermondsey)
★★★ Léon Wuidar (until 1 Jul): Abstract geometry, like some kind of Belgian semaphore. Just the one room, with notebook miniatures.
★★☆ Beatriz Milhazes - Rio Azul (until 1 Jul): Riotously colourful patterns, spangly shower curtains and a big tapestry. Proper vivid.
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