Diary of a London Art Critic: February edition

Major openings at Barbican, Hayward, Whitechapel, Saatchi & Courtauld Galleries

In this post, I summarise every exhibition I’ve seen over the last few weeks, not just those I write about in other publications, and you get my honest thoughts on them.

Saturday 1 February

A few west London exhibitions before a trek north for a new to-London art fair at Ally Pally.

Albano Hernandez’s exhibition at Palmer Gallery

The Gilbert Bayes Award at the Royal Society of Sculptors (until 22 March, free) was a mixed bag, though I was drawn to Jack Evans’ aluminium works. The sparing hang is rare and welcomed for a prize exhibition and if you’ve never been it’s a remarkable building worth visiting.

Tuấn Andrew Nguyễn: When Water Embraces Empty Space at The Showroom (until 5 April, free) is an excellent show and it’s worth staying to watch the films. It tells the story of a wooden outrigger sailboat, from the island of Luf in Papua New Guinea, kept in a Berlin museum. It takes the descendants of those who built it to see it and touch it in a moving film. On the larger screen, the boat leaves the museum and sails for home through computer-generated imagery, set to beautifully haunting music.

Around the corner in a rather striking building is Albano Hernandez’s show at Palmer Gallery (until 22 February, free). His work is based on the cattle industry in Central Spain and one wall is made of ear tags from cows showing the wear you’d expect on them. They create shadows to reference the dead cows and the line through the tags replicates a global growth in the cattle industry. His other works are more playful, taking residue from his studio and creating slices like processed meat and placing them in vacuum-packed bags and around a spindle to resemble a shawarma.

My final stop of the day was at Fresh Art Fair at Alexandra Palace (now closed) — it’s my first time visiting the fair and their first London edition. It’s a small fair in a great venue but I had my doubts going in — they are competing in the same bracket as Affordable Art Fair (AAF), who have a very successful model that may have that market cornered, and as a South Londoner Ally Pally is a trek to get to — even from West London it took me 50 minutes.

However, I spoke to the artists and the booth costs are lower than AAF, it had more artist collectives, and everyone I spoke to seemed to be selling well. Starting a new art fair is tough, but it seems to be working so I’ll keep an eye out for how it grows.

Below the paywall:

• Thoughts on Noah Davis at Barbican, Donald Rodney at Whitechapel Gallery and Mickalene Thomas at Hayward Gallery.

• What to make of museum shows at The Courtauld, Young V&A and the Charles Dickens Museum?

• Tons more exhibitions from every corner in London