Artist-poet Jesse Darling’s recent survey show at Modern Art Oxford took a swipe at the tidy authority of museum displays. Glass-topped cabinets teetered and slumped into corners, metal stands refused to do just that, and an exuberant – if terrifying – rollercoaster sculpture looped the upper reaches before unravelling into splayed track. The programming of that show directly after an exhibition by Anish Kapoor – an artist who delights in impeccably controlled materials – felt gleefully pointed.
Coming swiftly afterwards, Darling’s Enclosures at Camden Art Centre is a rather different animal. The result of a ceramics fellowship that took place more off site than it might have under less Covidy circumstances, the show translates the artist’s interests in vulnerability and care into the exploration of clay.
