Ashmolean Museum, Beaumont Street, Oxford OX1 2PH
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There’s a frustrating quote from Jeff Koons in the catalogue accompaniment to a new exhibition of his artwork at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. “I’ve tried to make work,” it says, “that any viewer, no matter where they came from […] would have to say that on some level “Yes, I like it.” If they couldn’t do that, it would only be because they had been told they were not supposed to.” Review by Rowland Bagnall
Koenig Gallery, 121, Alexandrinenstraße 118, 10969 Berlin
For her most recent exhibition titled ‘Fixed Sky Situation’ at Koenig Galerie, Turner and Hepworth Prize winner Helen Marten presents eight new works, including three complex installations and five large paintings that circle the space like secular polyptychs. Review by Anais Castro
The Approach, 1st Floor, 47 Approach Road, Bethnal Green, London E2 9LY
In the delicate space of The Approach Gallery, group show ‘Shapeshifters’ initially seems a suitably lightweight fit with pastel images and objects tiptoeing across the room. In direct opposition, heaviness slowly wades in through the details, as pinks shift from candy fluorescent to wet plasticky sludge and blood clot red. Review by Jillian Knipe
mother’s tankstation, 41- 43 Watling Street, Usher’s Island, Dublin, D08 NP48, Ireland
As you enter Dublin’s mother’s tankstation and Lee Kit’s ‘Banal’ you are greeted by Gnarls Barkley’s 2006 hit song ‘Crazy’. A search for the source of ‘I think you’re crazy’ (2017) reveals a pair of headphones overhead, dangled upside down and tantalisingly out of reach - and out of use. On the wall Kit has, through a plastic storage container, projected a video that has some of the song’s lyrics overlaid, with others missing. Review by Aidan Kelly Murphy
Secession, Friedrichstraße 12, 1010 Wien, Austria
Endeavouring to create yet another enhancing experience, the Austrian artist Philipp Timischl, in his exhibition ‘Artworks for all Age Groups’ at the Secession Wien, addresses questions of belonging, roots and queerness. Review by Alexandra Gamrot
MCA Denver, 1485 Delgany Street, 80202, USA
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On a physical and material level, but most crucially on a metaphysical and referential plane, Donovan's works multiply, fold and expand beyond the sum of their parts. Review by Rosanna van Mierlo
Lily Brooke, 3 Ada Road, London SE5 7RW
At Lily Brooke, Evy Jokhova’s latest installation ‘Weighed down by stones’ is archaeological, concerning the weight of the past upon the present and the possibility of returning to it. Review by Jacob Charles Wilson
Rennes
Siham and Hafida are two singers of the Aita, a musical genre of the Chikha. Their intergenerational conversations throughout the film give insight to how lived experience is transmitted and challenged by the fact that the younger generations learn the treats of the Aita through clips on youtube. Review by Helena Julian
Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art, St James's, London SE14 6AD
For her first solo exhibition in London, ‘4LIFE’, multidisciplinary artist Kris Lemsalu transforms the upstairs galleries at Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art into a supernatural realm, occupied with otherworldly, absurdist characters that guide you through stages of birth, life and death. Review by Julia Schouten
Auto Italia, 44 Bonner Road, London E2 9JS
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‘Read My Lips’ is a powerful retrospective of agitprop collective Gran Fury, an autonomous unit stemming from the New York caucus of radical international direct action group ‘AIDs Coalition To Unleash Power’ or ACT UP. Review by Sophie Risner
Plymouth College of Art, Tavistock Pl, Plymouth PL4 8AT
Simon Bayliss’ exhibition, Meditations in an Emergency, is an exhibition of multitudes, crossing from pottery and electronic music to watercolour landscapes, poetry and performative film. The show by is a marriage of the seemingly incongruous, such as the neon sign alternating SIMON BAYLISS / SIN ON GAY BLISS reflecting on the glazing of his pottery. It is a joining, as the words inscribed on the pot reads, of ‘high and low with one another’. Review by Eva Szwarc
Humber Street Gallery, 64 Humber St, Hull HU1 1TU
Raised as a socialist and a druid and initiated into political activism at a young age, Jamie Reid blames his parents for his rebellious streak; which at the age of 71, shows no sign of abating. The self-described anarchist uses iconoclastic collages and seditious ransom note-style idioms to marshal a cultural insurgence against the status quo; while his kaleidoscopic paintings reject materialism and individualism through a meditative connection with nature. Review by Christopher Little
Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan, Via Chiese, 2, 20126 Milano MI, Italy
Curated by Vicente Todolí, Pirelli HangarBicocca Milan is currently presenting the iconic Igloos of Mario Merz (1925–2003) - a key figure of Arte Povera, and considered to be one of the most important post-war Italian artists; the exhibition brings together his most iconic oeuvre of work, the igloos, which date from 1968 until the end of the artist’s life. Review by Paul Black
Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, S Shore Rd, Gateshead NE8 3BA
Phillipson also throws a good measure of animal love into this heady mix, and none are more receiving of this affection than the colony of Kittiwakes that nest on BALTIC’s exterior. Their distinctive squawks are mixed into the electronic trance music, while wall-mounted television screens show ‘live’ feeds of the birds and a downloadable app reveals their ‘augmented reality excrement’. Review by Christopher Little
