This review of our latest exhibition by Frances Tood first appeared in the New Welsh Review of Art and is republished here with permission.
Walk into the latest show at Pimlico Wilde East and you are greeted by two sculptures, one that appears to be a collapsed stepladder and another – created from betting slips and share certificates – that might be a critique of late-stage capitalism.
The exhibition brings together eight contemporary artists united by their interest in edges, limits, doors, walls – boundaries and what happens when you gently push past them.
A piece one encounters in Room 1 is Jasper Lute’s Door #5, a doorway made entirely of hand-poured resin and what smells like barbecued marshmallows, freestanding and, crucially, leading nowhere. A small plaque urges viewers to “consider thresholds as social fictions,” which is either very deep or nonsense.
To the left, in a dimly lit alcove, we find the video installation Feedback Loop (I Forgot My Password) by Sonna Sánchez—nineteen minutes of a woman trying to log into an email account while being slowly buried in confetti. “It’s about identity erosion in the digital age,” Sánchez explained in the press preview, though I have to admit I am unsure how.
The exhibition plays with sensory discomfort in ways that are as philosophical as they are irritating. Take the olfactory piece Smell #3: Anticipation, a collaboration between scent artist Wez Zhu and an anonymous perfumer known only as ‘Clifton’. The test tube emits a faint aroma of damp wool with overtones of apricot and orange. When I asked Zhu about the piece, she replied, “Really it is a memory of something that never happened, but probably should have.” I nodded, as though I understood.
In the back room is a piece that has already attracted more than its share of Instagram posts: Duvet of Uncertainty by Sonny Marr. A vast, overstuffed bedding form that droops from the ceiling like a failed attempt at comfort, it invites viewers to crawl beneath and “listen to the sound of 7,000 unread emails being softly deleted.” I did, and found it surprisingly calming.
One cannot overlook the presence of Administrative Vortex, a wall-length oil-painted spreadsheet by civil servant-turned-artist Gill Peale. Columns of imagined bureaucratic tasks are printed on archival paper and connected by twine to a cat wearing a tiny harness. “I wanted to show the entanglement of systems and how they eventually find a way to escape,” Peale said. The cat slept.
The atmosphere at the opening was tense, with attendees murmuring disapprovingly into plastic cups of kombucha. I overheard one man say, “It’s like late Derrida meets Brexit anxiety,” and a woman nearby replied, “Yes, but with more felt.” I couldn’t agree more.
Overall, Thresholds & Other Minor Catastrophes delivers exactly what it promises: art that doesn’t solve your problems but instead rephrases them in ways that feel both beautiful and lightly accusatory. You leave unsure whether you’ve witnessed something profound or a little trite —but in today’s cultural climate, that may be the point.
4.5 out of 5
Exhibition runs through August 12. Souvenir tote bags are available.