Simeon Barclay review – shut out by the gates of a drab modern Britain

John Hansard Gallery, Southampton
Farewell Sweet Innocence references cinema, football, music and Windrush – it’s about trying to fit in, but always falling short, even as a Turner-nominated artist

There’s that old Marxist (Groucho, not Karl) saying about refusing to join any club that would have you as a member. Simeon Barclay takes that idea one step further in his work, because he knows that even if the club would have him, he’d never be truly accepted anyway. He calls his show in Southampton “a lament of sorts, to access and loss”. It comes just a few weeks after he got nominated for the Turner prize, and it’s a damn fine argument for why he should probably win it.

This is an exhibition all about exclusion, about trying to fit in but never quite managing. It’s razor-sharp, funny, pop-cultural, obtuse conceptual art about growing up black in Britain, about trying to make it and knowing you’re bound to fail, because the system is geared towards failure.
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