"There’s a certain fatigue that often accompanies the mention of an art fair: the rows of booth presentations, the hum of transactional chatter beneath the glare of LED lighting, usually set in a convention centre. An artist’s assistant once described an art fair to me as “a butcher’s shop,” and it’s hard to forget this analogy that conjures up a sense of dismemberment: art priced and portioned for consumption. Yet, inside The Mandrake Hotel in Soho, London, during Minor Attractions 2025, the metaphor no longer fits.
In the Mandrake’s Ginkgo Suite, Tache presents new paintings by Lily Hargreaves, who depicts organic forms including tomatoes and celery, rendered in a way that stylistically gestures towards Futurism and the engineered forms of Precisionism. Her works sit alongside a monumental fantastical dollhouse installation by Amélie McKee and Melle Nieling of Plicnik Space Initiative. The sky blue house expands across the suite, its toy-like nature and uncanny details create a surreal environment that feels equally playful as it does disquieting."
