Triple Whammy
The Hayward Gallery, London + Sadie Coles, London
Mickalene Thomas – ‘All About Love’ & Linder – ‘Danger Came Smiling’
+ Dada Khanyisa ‘this is for you’
11 February – 5 May 2025
Three great new shows (among many) on in London right now, so I’ll dive straight in.
A thought hit me while I was in the Mickalene Thomas show at the Hayward Gallery – most paintings are pretty easy to photograph. But, shimmering with rhinestones, the American artist’s rich and intensely colourful paintings somehow totally resist being fully captured in flat snapshots, in just one kind of light, without the little movements of your own eyes and body in front of them subtly shifting something about them.
It’s a nice metaphor in a way for much of this exhibition, titled ‘All About Love’. It’s both super simple in its intentions and impossible to pin down. The scale and the range - photography, video work, installation, painting, collage - are grand. It all feels guilt-free, almost greedy, in its hunger for life.
Thomas works with lots of references, mainly knowing nods to ‘old masters’ like Manet and Monet. But it’s all filtered through her own life, via what she calls ‘the gaze of a Black woman unapologetically loving other Black women’.
Those rhinestones are glittering reminders of the radical act of leisure. Of putting something sparkly on just because you can. Of the rebelliousness of a bit of glitz in a world which doesn't see everyone as equal. And her figures are mostly depictions of friends, family, lovers and models (Solange Knowles is one of the celebrities on show).
Alongside all the paintings, are two lush stage sets which are recreations of living spaces from the artist’s life. They’re incredibly inviting (80s R&B records were playing) but sadly you can’t nestle yourself into the comfy sofas.
The exhibition title comes from the writer bell hooks and there’s a beautiful wall quote from her as well as a stairwell text from James Baldwin. There’s a seating area in front of a video work (‘Angelitos Negros’ by Eartha Kitt, into which Thomas has spliced herself alongside the singer), which is packed out with books by those two authors and more, and another bean bag pile in a room full of lavish paintings.
This is the first major international tour of Thomas’s work and it’s a ripper.
It’s very much a two-for-one affair from the Hayward, as in the rooms next door to the main gallery, there’s a slightly smaller, but still meaty and mighty, retrospective of work by iconic British artist Linder.
Exploring 50 years of Linder for the first time in one place, ‘Danger Came Smiling’ is a big dose of the moment where punk meets print. Linder describes her practice, which in the most part revolves around collage, as ‘non-monumental, intimate work’. But for all its intimacy, it's impactful as hell. If at a casual glance you might feel like you've seen some of those porno collages before, well you have and it was Linder who was there first, with stuff like her iconic cover art for The Buzzcocks’ 1977 single ‘Orgasm Addict’. There's lots more to love here too, even if your eyes have been dazzled from all the rhinestones next door.
Bonus Gift – Dada Khanyisa ‘this is for you’
Sadie Coles, London
26 February – 12 April, 2025
South African artist Dada Khanyisa, who lives and works in Cape Town, describes themselves in an understated way as a ‘maker of things’, which is both true and a sort of smokescreen for the quality of playful painting and inventive sculpture contained in ‘this is for you’.
The exhibition text explains, in good ol’ exhibition text speak, how the show ‘foregrounds nostalgia and shared histories – documented and fictional – as a device to evaluate the present, using the formal aspects and personal associations of photography to communicate social performativity and perception’.
What this actually results in is a delicious mix of assembled found objects, sculpture and painting (mostly all at the same time). If you’re well-versed in South African pop culture and politics there are layers and layers of detail to unpick. But I think the reason these pieces work so well is that they’re also just incredibly charming and accessibly human even if you’re not au fait with early 2000s Johannesburg teen drama Yizo Yizo.
There’s something of fellow Sadie Coles artist Helen Marten in the madcap layering, but Khanyisa’s work feels deeply crafted vs the more machine-honed joys of the 2016 Turner Prize winner’s installations.
Absolutely do make the effort to pop into Sadie Coles on Davies Street to see this delightful, intriguing, and frankly full-on fun show.
Gertrude & Sarabande - International Women’s Day
Founded by Will Jarvis of the Sunday Painter, Gertrude is one of a number of new art apps, aiming to lower the barriers between audiences/collectors and artists. Which is laudable. They’ve pulled together a selection of artworks by female artists for International Women’s Day (March 8 lads), including some lovely tapestry works by Eva Sajovic, and a particularly eye-catching mixed media piece called Aunt Flo’s Pearl by Elena Saraceni.
Similarly, Sarabande – the charitable foundation set up to provide studios and support for emerging talent by Lee Alexander McQueen – has an IWD showcase sale of work by its artists.
So why not snap up a print by photographer Kasia Wozniak, who mostly works with a lush wet plate collodion technique, or an erotic statement (why am I being so coy? It’s a porcelain butt-plug) from ceramic designer Adele Brydges? Happy hunting.