The landmarks by means of which Dexter Dalwood maps out a cultural landscape are both recognizable and disconcerting. Paintings referring to Mao and Stalin, Bill Gates and Kurt Cobain sit alongside others devoted to Patty Hearst, Ulrike Meinhof, and Brian Jones. Like the paintings themselves, which depict unpopulated fantasy-bespoke interiors cobbled together from a variety of art and design sources, Dalwood’s choice of iconic figures is both utterly familiar and willfully idiosyncratic. People who remain vivid in the popular imagination rub shoulders with others half-forgotten. This might be

The South London Gallery, founded in 1891, has become one of the liveliest venues in London since the appointment of David Thorp as director eight years ago. Despite operating on a shoestring budget—around half that of its worst funded counterpart in London, the Camden Arts Centre—Thorp consistently pulls stimulating exhibitions out of a hat. Many artists have been persuaded to show here by the gallery’s majestic navelike space.

“Domestic Bliss” is a good example of Thorp’s intelligent opportunism. Four years ago the nearby Goldsmiths College set up an M.A. in Creative Curating (

Mounting an exhibition of the work of the late Cuban-born American artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres (1957-96) represents a serious challenge. How can one shed light on a relatively small body of work that has been so widely exhibited, reproduced, and collected? Curator Lisa Corrin did it by taking into consideration one of the artist’s main concerns: how meaning shifts and travels through different contexts. Eschewing a chronological approach, she offered stimulating juxtapositions of works, enlightening even viewers who might have felt all too familiar with the artist’s candy spills, paper stacks,