We’re almost at Frieze week already, it seems to have almost arrived with very little fanfare this year, is it me or it the London Art scene feeling a little flat at the moment? Well things have been feeling flat for ages but this the lack of the usual buzz or excitement or noise is almost deafening. Most years we’re looking forward with a sense of anticipation, not so much for Frieze itself, the fair itself has been growing increasingly conservative (small c) year on year for a half a dozen years now, the anticipation has always for the things that go on around the couple of weeks around the fair. is it it me? Is London’s art scene feeling tired? Where are the artist led things? Stuffing knocked out of everything? No spaces left? Where are those car park shows now? That big thing that happened in Dockland one year? Where’s the next Play? Is an overcrowded  group show of miniatures on the side of a canal boat the best anyone can offer? I mean CanalBoat Contemporary has been rewarding through the Summer but is that really it? The few artist-led shows there are now seem so by-the-book polite and unambitious, where’s the bite, the attitude, the swagger? it must be me? Surely things can’t be this flat? Even Seb looks like he packed it in… 

Did I really get asked for £55 to go to an opening of a show in a gallery (we’ve championed for years on these pages) last week? Because “the model needs to be changed” or something like that. Apparently, the fifty quid could be redeemed against a piece of art, it was non-refundable if you weren’t impressed enough to want a piece of art though. So Art is only for those who can afford it now? Well we’ve known that for a good few years, but hey, if you haven’t got the money to buy something (or just donate a big lump if you don;t want to redeem against a piece of art that no doubt costs a lot more that the £55 demand just ot go in) you most certainly can’t come in and have a look now.       

So the week is almost upon us, Tuesday already, we’re off to the Fair itself tomorrow week and yes, that costs an arm and a leg as well, but when did Frieze ever pretend to be about anything else other than money? W e all know how obscene the Fair is, I do like their honesty though and yes, I am on the press list (unless they read this and take me off said list), I wouldn’t pay that price….

Enough of this, some art, some actual art.. 

Brandon Ndife, Palimpsests at Holtermann Fine Art, Cork Street, Lonson, October 2025 – We did take ourselves to a couple of Cork Street openings at the end of last week on the way to the Peter Hammill show and we did really rather urgently need to see Alexandre Diop’s Run For Your Life show at Stephen Friedman Gallery and well Holtermann Fine Art said something about being “pleased to present Brandon Ndife: Palimpsests, the artist’s first exhibition with the gallery and his London debut”. I like the small Holtermann space over the street from the giant Stephen Friedman Gallery, now Holtermann shows do always come with a bit of old school swagger, There is actually a hint of defiance at Holtermann, there in the middle of the most conservative of art streets. Hey, I like Cork Street, Cork Street’s job is to be contemporary art’s establishment, surely the cutting edge should be in Hackney or Peckham although I can’t rember when I last saw anything cutting edge on my Hackney home turf and when did anything last drag me to Peckham? There’s been some great shows at Holtermann; that excellent Peter Buggenhout show, that rewarding Balancing Acts group show back in early summer. The space might be small in size, it is always very big in terms of rewarding shows.  Right now at Holtermann there’s a just opened a show from New York based artist Brandon Ndife…

Palimpsests features work made in 2024, including wall-based sculpture, freestanding structures and works on paper. “The exhibition takes its title from the concept of a palimpsest – a surface layered with traces of previous marks or writings – an idea that resonates with Ndife’s ongoing exploration of history, transformation and overlay” – I like the lines in here, the way a show is put together is important, the sight lines, the way the art is coaxed into drawing you in and one you are drawn in, these slightly unsettling pieces of well, what are they?  Bits of found mostly old brown furniture culled from the urban landscape and shaped in to these relatively small sculptures (is he always this small or is the size of the space dictating?) 

Piece of legs of chairs and hints of things being overrun with vegetation and impending signs of both ripening and rot – those layers again, that Captain’s table thing, that hint of new growth – the works appear like relics unearthed from a distant past and yes indeed, “envoys of a dystopian future”.    

“Ndife is drawn to domestic items that bear the trace of their absent owners, through signs of wear or broader symbolic ties to American life under capitalism—riven by racial, class, and now ecological disparities that take root in all we touch” and this really is a show that draws you in, that holds you, not sure if ‘like’ is the right word but I do really like this show. I want to see more of his work, I want to talk to it, or maybe him, no, not him, I want more conversations with his art, with the stories these pieces suggest, the way he’s chosen to put his pieces together, I really really like this show. I’ve been thinking about since I saw it last Thursday, I really need to go back now I’ve had time to think about what I’ve seen…   

Brandon Ndife is at Holtermann Fine Art until 29th November 2025. The gallery is at 30 Cork Street, London W1S 3NG. The space is open Tuesday to Friday 11:00-18:00 and Saturday 11:00-17:00. Entry is free.

As always, please do click on an image to see the whole thing or to run the slice show…