Group Show

A PV Gremlin is invited out

Wednesday 11th March, 2026

I looked at a painting and turned to its artist. “It’s obviously the best one here,” I said, “and I was once a semi-professional art critic.” The artist smiled and Suze rolled her eyes.

We were in a group show that was becoming busier by the second. Bodies filled the space between the artworks and the sofas. In the corner was a cafe, where complimentary cans of G&T rested on the counter and a grizzled barista in a leather apron stood behind them. He could either make you a coffee or hand you wine or beer, but you had to pay for the pleasure. He was forever bustling around the room. I took a couple of warm tinnies and tried to work out what was happening. Did this gallery employ a barista? Was it a gallery at all? It looked the business: huge glass windows poured light onto the street. It had pristine white walls. There was black vinyl lettering near the door, announcing the show’s title and saying what it was about.

Eight contemporary artists, all firmly in that ‘rising’ category, had been asked to respond to a decade of popular music from the fifties to present day. The task was to make an artwork inspired by one album from that decade. The artist could decide which era they wanted. A sweep around the room told me that the eight albums were by Eartha Kitt, the Velvet Underground and Nico, the B-52s, some Japanese guy, D’Angelo, Dizzee Rascal, Solange, and King Krule. Before each artwork were a pair of headphones and a record player, with the respective album spinning on top. The record sleeve was placed nearby so people would know what each artwork was referencing. I looked at the art and tried to come up with some opinions.

As with all group shows, it was mostly paintings. Responding to the VU was a fuzzy medium-sized picture of two lipsticks, one green and one blue, on a purple background. I frowned. If you’re going to face up to the art associated with that record, you’re either responding to Andy Warhol or trying to better him. This painting did neither. I moved across the room to look at a soft-focus, woozy version of their album’s cover. Nearby was a self portrait in the style of their album’s cover. I began to feel discouraged by the display. In the middle of the room was a piece made up of four really horrible sculptures. They were small, cartoonish figures rendered in block colours. Half of them were women with big busts. I struggled to see what they had to do with the B-52s.

In a group show, there’s always a chance one artist outshines the others. I got this feeling at a contemporary figurative painting show at the Whitechapel Art Gallery a few years ago, where Nicole Eisenmann completely and absolutely bodied the other exhibiting artists. This time it was the Dizzee picture. It radiated energy. I might have been going mad, but it seemed like most people congregated nearby. So embarrassingly, it was by a friend of mine. He was the reason we were there, sipping on lukewarm tinnies. From a safe distance I watched the artist work the room, talking to a famous artist and some of his friends, all of whom were wearing furry hats. This show felt like a big deal, co-presented with a gallery whose art fair I once accidentally crashed. It was a rung of the ladder the artist had stepped firmly on and was pushing himself up from.

After the fifth or sixth tin I became delirious with hunger and demanded to move towards the nearest falafel wrap. We said our goodbyes and walked into the London night.