Miss French is frightening enough at the best of times and this ad is certainly not recommended for sensitive children. Langlands and Bell: Serpentine, W2 (0171 723 9072), to 27 May.. One side in the upcoming war of the UK information superhighway is riding into battle behind the awesome figure of Dawn French, or, more precisely, Dawn French’s lipstick. Her lipstick is the main creative innovation in the CCA’s pounds 12m campaign. Not only does it double the acreage of her lips, it turns up at the sides in ritual flourishes like an Edwardian moustache. One can’t often recommend the Serpentine’s cheap gallery guides, but Dalia Manor’s little introduction to the show (just 30p) deserves praise for its informative clarity.! Carl Andre: Oxford Moma (01865 728608), to 30 June. I give the show high marks as neo-conceptualism, low marks as free creation.

Ben Langlands and Nikki Bell examine architecture, design and furniture. They subject buildings, tables and chairs to a visual scrutiny that undermines their original functions. Some of the pieces are amusing, but the general depressing message is that all buildings and objects of use have been devised by someone else to control us. This opinion ought to make Langlands and Bell into anarchists.

Their bland and meticulous craftsmanship suggests, however, that they are part of the controlling system, since they understand it so well. They are so lumpen that Andre by comparison has the grace of a ballet dancer The work inside the gallery is better. The top gallery at Moma has an immense installation of 1296 metal tiles It’s interesting, but not for long Andre is now an extremely repetitious artist. If he wants to do some radical work, he should take a risk with height – and perhaps hand-carving.AT THE Serpentine, there are some minimal sculptures on the lawn by the American Tony Smith, another artist who made his name with minimalism.

It’s significant that – like Brancusi – Andre has hankerings to make a monument. The Romanian could do so and his monuments are his achievements. Andre, though, holds back; and when he tries to make sculpture with an epic dimension it always looks timid.There’s an obvious reason for this failure (for failure it is) Andre pitches his sculptures too low on the ground. Repeated neutral elements only two or three inches above the floor will always lack eloquence.