Cover image of the review
Studio view of Justine Varga, Visage, 2018–19, prints in the laboratory, 2019. Courtesy of Tolarno Galleries.

Justine Varga, Tachisme
  • Chelsea Hopper


9 May 2020
Tolarno Galleries 4 Apr - 9 May 2020

The only way to access the exhibition is online. You type in your email address and are automatically added to the Tolarno Galleries’ mailing list along with a promise that the gallery “will not share your details with anyone else”. Underneath, a digital countdown is ticking away the days, hours, minutes and seconds left until the “viewing space” closes. Is anyone really keeping track of time at the moment? Perhaps it’s a bid to foster some sense of anticipation. The strategy worked wonders in the past. Famously, when Psycho (1960) was first screened at cinemas, Hitchcock required theatres to run a countdown in the foyer that periodically indicated the impending start of the film screening. Here, the sense of anticipation falls flat. The expectation of clicking and scrolling through an online exhibition doesn’t exactly scream exciting; but at least we get to see the work.

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