Review: Poor Curation Spoils Qureshi's Minature Landscapes

A heavy dose of gold leaf features in these miniature landscapes; they're in the Mughal style, but painted by contemporary Pakistani artist Imran Qureshi.

This exhibition is superbly lit, with each work given a chance to shine in the grand space of Barbican's Curve gallery.

But fascinating though they are, the paintings' natural scenes are meant to contain darker undercurrents that weren't evident in our walk through.

Almost as compensation, paint is splashed across the floor, walls and even over the paintings themselves — a prettified version of blood spatter.

This — along with the fact the works are hung at different heights — merely distracts from the minute details of the paintings. It feels like a vain attempt to make use of the massive space.

If the show was simply the paintings lined up it would have made for a solid display.

All the curation succeeds in doing is ruining an exhibition that had potential.

Imran Qureshi: Where the shadows are so deep is on at the Curve, Barbican until 10 July. Entrance is free.