Review: Elina Brotherus

Rust needs moisture, and there's plenty of that in this extensive retrospective of the Finish film-maker and photographer Elina Brotherus. It concentrates on film, with no fewer than 11 video works on show covering 1998-2010, two of them triptychs - of bathers in natural landscapes and of rained-on vistas - and another the four part Model Studies (2005), which effectively uses the video camera to make life class drawings. Brotherus has often used herself as the model, including in a hundred photo sequence, recently seen at the Bloomberg Space, which documented the effects of her medication. The newest film here combines that strand with the life class through a film of two painters for whom she is the model - except, of course, that they are the primary models, the actors in her video. Brotherus is also particularly good at using the family, and sneaks more humour into her work than may sound likely. Recommended as a user-friendly recovery experience after the crowded Gauguin headline-grabber next door.