"Allison Katz: Camden Arts Centre" by Andrew Hunt

Allison Katz’s “Artery” was what could be called an art critic’s dream. Three reviews had already appeared by the time I got to it a few weeks after it opened—from Sydney via Heathrow, jet-lagged and disoriented. Somehow, though, the writers seemed to miss important elements of the exhibition, which consisted of thirty confounding paintings, ceramics, and prints, all representational but in a variety of styles. It went unremarked that the works had clearly been made to fit precisely into the two large rooms of Camden Art Centre in which they were displayed; the fact that turned out to be crucial. And then there were details—well, more than details—such as the recurrent use of the motif of a rooster (a “cockerel” in Canadian-born Katz’s UK English), misidentified as a chicken in one text. This was obviously a comical reference to the artistic ego, specifically the male artist’s ego, as manifested through self-proclamation. Thus, even before one got to the first gallery space, five self-mocking and self-aggrandizing posters in the foyer made by Katz advertised the project one was already on one’s way to see.

Read full review at artforum.com