Cathy's Art Diary

Clever but dull exhibition at Somerset House Gallery 31 of work by Christine Sun Kim. It consisted of stretched shaped canvases which evidently mirrored the movements made by someone signing the titles in American Sign Language. It was a clever idea and about language occupying space but I’m afraid as objects they were quite dull. They’d have benefited by being shown with a video of someone signing the words. I see here is a video online so I’m off to watch it. Closed 21 May 2023  

Incompressible exhibition at Somerset House of three videos and an installation. I’m afraid the handout was so convoluted, that despite reading it a number of times, I’m still not sure what the point of the show was and therefore didn’t feel invested enough to watch the videos. I’m afraid when a phrase in the handout ‘fictional activism’ has to have an asterisked note below I lose the will to live. The show was curated by ‘exploratory producing platform’ A—-Z in response to an interpretation of The Tempest as a critique of colonialism but I had no idea what that had to do with the art. Now if the installation shown here has been a comment on the World Cup I’d have understood but evidently it was a ‘violent investigation into the art world’. Closes 19 March 2023

Refreshing exhibition at Somerset House curated by Taylor LeMelle. I say refreshing as the commentary says it has no theme in particular and it is about anything. “It is about the viewer’s appreciation of whatever connections exist between their own life experience and these works.” Am I showing my age to say to me it said 1970s living room? The wallpaper was commissioned for the site by Mani Kambo and is a three woodblock print. The chairs came from other rooms in the building. The pictures on the walls are a series of prints by Tai Shani called The Neon Hieroglyph. I’m not sure I understood them but it this context they were attractive. Closes 20 November 2022  

Strange exhibition at Somerset House of work by artists in the Somerset House Studios residency. This was the fourth show in a series highlighting the work of the residency artists. This one was curated by Stella Sideli and it “considers the temporary synchronicity between people, bodies, sounds and signals”. No I don’t understand either! My favourite piece was by Abbas Zahedi and consisted of a kick drum pedal against the gallery door with some sort of digital acoustic effect so that when you pressed the pedal it made a noise. This was accompanied by a tiny digital print of a brussels sprout over the door. I’ve no idea what it meant but it was fun and interactive. I liked Joe Namy’s curtain shown here which broke up the space. Again I have no idea what it was about and reading the rather dense handout, which I kept, doesn’t help. The other two works by Phoebe Davies and Sonya Dyer were video pieces and I wish I’d had more time to watch them properly, particularly the one by D...