REVIEWDUMP 08.05.25
Studio 1.1, Benjamin Rhodes, Twilight Contemporary
The prodigal daughter and God’s favourite critic returns to Albion. If I owe you a gallery visit, studio chat, drinks, money, please remind me.
Michael Crowther: Bollihope and others — Benjamin Rhodes
★★★★☆
I visited this gallery right after an artist talk by Bex Wade, which naturally attracted a very young and what my father would call ‘progressive’ (read: gay, trans, American) crowd, so suddenly walking into a space pervaded by what appeared to be the AGM of the Chelsea Arts Club was a fun little transition. I have a real soft spot for these types, who often feel like they’ve come straight out of a Kingsley Amis novel, but usually not so much for their art — this time, however, I was thoroughly convinced by Michael Crowther’s small-scale oil on panel paintings. There is something deeply incalculable about the totemic shapes and their murky backgrounds, his subjects(?) feel simultaneously miniaturised and monumental. There’s a sort of uncertainty about how you’re meant to look at the syncopated whole, of which I feel there were perhaps too many pieces in total, but overall the works don’t suffer any more from congestion than from proximity.
After-Image — Studio 1.1 (Group Show)
★★☆☆☆
The premise of this exhibition is of “artists whose starting point is the photograph” punctuated by the parenthesis of “however far they travel from it”, which is the show’s biggest problem. A theme can be either broad or overextended, but not both.
There are still some great pieces. I had (ironically) seen photos of Katherine Lubar’s paintings before and while they didn’t translate as impressively onto canvas, her crowning jewel was a smaller pencil piece tucked away in the corner, a really gorgeous, geometric scene of shadows falling down stairs. Was also a fan of Rob Leech’s floor-based On06052025.ucv, showing ‘household emulsion’ (plastic tupperware, printer cartridges, lipbalm) floating over two black and white close-ups, something between mug and glamor shot (Mr. DeMille, I'm ready…). Liked some of Zoe Granger’s postcards too.
This could have been a much better show if the curators had been a little less latitudinarian in their approach to choosing which art to include. I understand that it’s tricky finding a theme that unites so many different artists working in so many forms/materials, but there’s also a certain meanness to propping up bad works that are well-suited to the theme and good works that have nothing to do with it.
Hecate — Twilight Contemporary
★★★☆☆
My favourite bit about Hecate in the Theogony are lines 428-430, which read:
Nor does the goddess, since she is an only child,
Have any less privilege on earth, sea, or heaven,
But all the more, since Zeus privileges her.
I once showed this passage to a father-figure (alright, a sugar-daddy with an incest kink) in an attempt to get him to up my allowance, which he did not find very funny. Nevertheless, your insults of only-childom cannot hurt me.1
Anyway, Hecate is the hinge of this show: “explorations of liminality, of which Hecate is also goddess of, are a shared point of entry for many of the artists here.” Similarly to After-Image, I’m a bit iffy about using liminality as a theme because it really can mean anything: it is very true that the Hecate-myth has played many roles and has come to represent many (sometimes conflicting) things, but it’s also not very interesting. That’s just how mythology works. I would have to have seen one, rather than all, symbolic aspects of the figure honed in on.
Eddie Jones’ segmented and colour-inverted landscape was presented as the star of the evening, although Minyoung Kim’s paintings were better. Alice Gompels’s drawings deserve a shout-out, as does her absolutely delightful Malcontent, depicting Hecate kicking a trumpet out of Death’s hands. Really liked the soft balance of very classical approaches (Jack Evans’ Flaxman-esque relief) and the more enigmatic and parabolic interpretations of the myth (Albie Romero’s luxuriously spooky Sacred Lambs, my favourite piece of the whole evening).
FINAL THOUGHTS
Finally went to see From Goya to Impressionism at the Courtauld, and frankly there’s not much more to be said that hasn’t been noted by Cam Thomas. ‘One Goya does not a timeline make’ indeed.
Been playing DnD with ChatGPT. Had to stop when it started naming characters after well known London art world figures. It thinks Annka Kultys would be a half-elf ranger, if anyone was wondering.
My alchemists (Phillip Morris, Pernod Ricard) have promised me a beautiful and eternal life. I will not listen to rotten ramblings of my pathetic royal advisors (sixty years of lung, liver and skin cancer research) that seek to jealously steer me away from the philosophers stone and the fountain of youth (two packs of Marlboro Red and one million gin and tonics in the sun).
Thinking of calling my son Victor (short for Victoria the Lesser).
Mad cause your sister’s getting the Le Creuset, aintcha?