Installation view, Allison Katz, Artery, Camden Art Centre, London, 2022. Photo: Rob Harris
As a new wave of sentimental and reactionary painting grows tiresome, Allison Katz’s exhibition at Camden Art Centre offers a wake-up call.
There’s an abundance of new painting. And much of it is very good. Still, fatigue ensues. I stop being able to tell the difference, stop wanting to. Why? It was only at a recent visit to Allison Katz’s exhibition Artery at Camden Art Centre that I began to be able to put words to the issue.
Artery opens with a perfect trompe l’oeil depicting the inside of the gallery’s lift. In the same room is a pastel Bloomsbury-esque ceramic object with a picture of a person. I could imagine a fashion magazine calling it feminist (because, ceramics) and suggesting other similarly appealing objects per the algorithmic logic of “you might also like.” But then follows a large picture of a rooster in shrill yellow and an unusually charmless view onto a brown canal. Nothing matches, either in terms of style or motif. All the works are as precisely and skilfully executed as is necessary. The point is not for Katz to enchant us with painterly rigour; she can afford to not impress us on that front (and the neurotic perfection found in an Emily Mae Smith, Francesca Facciola, or Avery Singer even appears slightly embarrassing by comparison). No, these pictures only have to matter to one another and to the train of thought they take part in egging on.
Read full article at kunstkritikk.com