What's Hot? With Francesca Gavin: October Edition

Blame fashion and social media, but the 1990s revival is now in full swing, culturally. From the YBAs to the US rebels playing with installation and moving image, a surge of artists who made their name in the decade are popping up again across the city. These three shows capture some of the energy of the era of dial-up internet, phone-free living and club-kid irreverence.

Cady Noland at Gagosian

Cady Noland notably stopped making art and refused to exhibit around 2001, so this exhibition of the 1990s icon is big news. Although her career began in the late 1980s, it was really in the ’90s that Noland exploded, exhibiting in the 44th Venice Biennale in 1990, the Whitney Biennial in 1991 and Documenta 9 in 1992, among many other shows. Slowly returning to the art world, here she presents a full installation as an exhibition. Noland is a perfect example of an artist who wants their work shown and experienced in a certain way. The windows of the gallery, normally perfect for drive-by viewing, are covered with whiteboards. When you enter, it is like stepping into a monochromatic studio archive. The space is filled with work unpicking American pop culture and identity, the symbols and systems of control, and the dissemination of meaning through image and media. Although clearly very conceptual, her work also has an immediate and visceral effect. There is a brilliant pleasure in exploring the details, like Easter eggs in a computer game. This is art that knows what it’s doing, doesn’t give everything away and is definitely worth seeing.

Charles Atlas at Champ Lacombe
Video art would not look like it does today without Charles Atlas. The New York-based artist is known for working with some of the most iconic queer figures of the late 20th century, such as Leigh Bowery and Michael Clark, in the exceptional film Hail the New Puritan. Taking place over two floors and three screens - embedded subtly into the walls of the gallery - this is a mini retrospective of some of Atlas’s incredible short films, including many earlier, more subtle pieces created while he was Merce Cunningham’s in-house videographer. Humour, choreography, campness, emotion, violence, beauty: everything is here. There are tongue-in-cheek nods to the history of cinema, such as DIY dancing bin bags with legs, a riff on Hollywood musicals, or a drag version of an operatic Douglas Sirk-style melodrama. Some of Atlas’s earlier works, nine billboards from Mayonnaise Number One (1973), are also popping up around the city. Atlas is an artist always worth rediscovering, as this unmissable, intimate exhibition shows.

The 90s: Art and Fashion at Tate Britain
Walking the tightrope between art and fashion in an exhibition context is never easy. Each discipline wants more of its own media present, something that former Vogue editor Edward Enninful OBE has had to work with in curating this survey of the British 1990s. Coming from an editorial background, the exhibition works best with photography. The highlight is a room devoted to rave and club culture, with party photos by everyone from Normski to Seana Gavin to Dave Swindells surrounding Mark Leckey’s video Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore. Of special note is Vinca Petersen’s brilliant free-party collage wall. In other rooms, art and fashion are more literally integrated, with clothing from Galliano, Westwood and McQueen sitting alongside sculptures by Yinka Shonibare, Sarah Lucas and Damien Hirst. Somehow, the show doesn’t feel big enough. The haters would probably only have been happy if the 1997 show Sensation had been recreated work for work. Yet this is still an exhibition worth seeing, especially if you weren’t there, as a reminder of the decade’s rebellion, imagination and unabashed hedonistic fun.

Cady Noland, until 19 December, Gagosian, Davies Street, London W1
Charles Atlas, until 21 December, Champ Lacombe, 1 Woburn Walk, London WC1H
The 90s: Art and Fashion, until 14 February, Tate Britain, Millbank, London SW1