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The New Contemporaries exhibition has a long history at the ICA but has not been held on The Mall for more than 20 years. Dedicated to recent graduates and a smattering of artists in the midst of their studies, it is selected by three established artists, this time including 2008 Turner Prize winner Mark Leckey. Its return to the ICA is a win-win for all concerned — the artists get to exhibit in a historically important central London venue, and the ICA can attempt to claw back its reputation as the must-visit home of emerging art.

Inevitably, New Contemporaries exhibitions are uneven — they are not celebrations of fully-rounded artists but shows about promise and as such they have the feel of a laboratory. This year seems even more experimental than usual because of the fashionable "open hang", meaning that the spaces are largely undivided, with visually cacophonous results.

The ICA’s ground-floor space is a case in point. Within immediate eyeshot as you enter are Daniel Lichtman’s Powerpoint texts with excerpts from his childhood and teenage diaries, the subtle abstract paintings of Alice Browne, the strange and atmospheric photographs of Vasileios Kantas, an "interactive installation" with a projected petrol station and a water pump by Joe Clark, and Kristian de la Riva’s hilarious animation featuring line drawings of a naked man with endless ingenious methods of self-mutilation. But while the works’ overlapping and interweaving can lead to chaos at times — does this object belong to that installation, or is it a standalone work? — it also makes for a tremendously energetic show.

Some tendencies emerge. There is a lot of self-conscious play with media, so that Laure Provost and Ed Atkins unpack the process of making videos, though their styles are remarkably different, with Provost rambling, anarchic and mischievous and Atkins cerebral and measured.

Much poetry is conjured from ephemera — Sam Knowles paints imaginary star constellations on torn pages from portentous tomes, Rowena Hughes prints geometric compositions on images from books to spatially disruptive effect, and Keren Dee creates art hybrids from postcards picked up at galleries. Meanwhile, paintings are modest in both scale and ambition, and always possess a light touch — rather flimsy in Alec Kronacker’s case, but deliciously delicate in Ian Homerston’s abstracts. No one included here leaps out as the artist messiah of our new decade but plenty of images and ideas have stayed with me. British art is in decent shape.
Until January 23 (020 7930 3647, ica.org.uk)

Bloomberg New Contemporaries
ICA
SW1