Beck’s Futures 2 far back

The expectations raised by this year’s Beck’s Futures show are a sad and inappropriate thanks-offering to a corporation that has contributed much over the years to British contemporary art, and the show does nothing to enhance the ICA’s current predicament. Even the winning artist, painter Tim Stoner, aged 30, fails to convince us that he is part of the new trend in British painting. Rather does the work exhibited seem like the last happy traces of the l970s, reminding one of Anthony Donaldson of that era. There is reference to Jackson Pollock, in the work of D J Simpson. D Burrows uses photography to simulate Pollock’s idiom, yet one perhaps enhanced by copious supplies of the sponsor’s beer. Where was the ‘fizz’ in British art? Not here, but the beer is the best. Beck’s Futures 3 needs a new jury for next time, with a better grasp of what really is happening in Britain.

Beck’s Futures 2 at ICA through 20 May