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My first gallery trawl in 2009, and I am immediately hit by the different mood in the galleries. I ask one person sitting at a desk and he answers, "existential". A big word to use simply to explain the palpable feeling of bleakness and emptiness. Before the down turn in the market at the end of 2008, I was deploring the "sweetifying" of artist's work. I often felt it was something for the collector, not for the artist as I saw depressingly bland show after show. Refreshing then to walk into Modern Art and feel the energy in the new Jonathan Meese show. In the past I have not always been a fan of this self confessed bad boy, feeling that at times he is both over productive and not self-editing enough, but this show with its palpable energy shows the artist in feisty and uncompromising spirit. The first room contains a video of Messe bouncing on a toilet and playing with a loo roll. In front of our unbelieving eyes, the artist constructs a swastika out of a handful of toilet roll and places it reverentially in the toilet and flushes it. As the water flows against the construction and it remains intact, the credits roll. This is both a strange and compelling work. Swastikas are not contained to the toilet here, but wash over the walls and reappear in the various large canvases which are littered with stuff – not just swastikas – but vaginas, penises, naked women and plastic toys, to name but a few. It's a jumble of angry mark making and a smeary covering of resin, but an energetic one and no matter how long you stand in front of them, you see more to consider. There is celebrity here and in particular, the actor Scarlett Johannson, who has a rocky road - in sliced and desecrated photographs - in a way reminiscent of John Baldessari's more benign shuttered vision. There is anger here both in Johannson and in the pornographic images that are cropped and doodled upon. In contrast, the few bronzes on display have a gravitas and formalism more reminiscent of Picasso and Penck then the angry young generation. Over in White Cube in Hoxton Square, Jay Jopling adds to his already unwieldy large stable of around fifty artists with two one man shows by artists, Rosson Crow and Andreas Golder. Crow is 26 years old with an immaculate student pedigree, a graduate of New York University and Yale University in 2006, she currently lives and works in Los Angeles. The scale of ambition of these large paintings- 7 in all - is large and imposing and this instantly sets them up as serious, as do the titles- seemingly engaging with locations both important and portentous. Crow herself says, "We are now awake to the sober morning after an orgy of myopic decadence". It is true that in a moment of history both dramatic and fragile the works are thrown into greater relief - and of greater scrutiny as well. They are painted in the tradition of the great history paintings of Gericault and Delacroix, without the humanity as Crow has removed any personages. They thus become virtual stage sets from which the action can only be inferred. The first canvas- "Lincoln's Funeral" shows the now familiar black coach. Flowers in pinks and carmine are clumped decoratively together. Skeins of paint drip down from their surfaces while splashes of white flicker across the front. According to the catalogue's excellent text by Jonathan T.D. Neill, Crow works longer in preparation of the canvases than in the actual painting. Collecting historical material, photographs and sketches, she eventually turns to the canvas, finishing the works in what can be as few as three or four sessions. This short hand can be perceived in the simplification of space and image. Crow points to the accident of paint – explaining it as the letting go of authorial control–quoting the art historian Rosalind Krauss. It is this insistence that the intention of the artist was to allow accident that I disagree with. There are obvious references in this work to other contemporary artists, in particular to Cy Twombly, whose recent show at the Tate Modern showed how the artistic drip, spill and splash could be transformed in a master's hand into a moment of rightness and correctness. Crow, particularly in this work seems to be self consciously assuming the technique and the splashes and scrumbles and drips of paint do not quite convince. Rather than relinquishing authorship she seems to have gripped more tightly to it. Other paintings are more successful. I like New York Stock Exchange, After Bond Rally, 1919. The composition works well here, the trails of ticker tape paper draped onto lights work here as pictorial unifiers. The drips are integrated into the canvas and appear less like cosmetic application. Time will help disguise the obvious homage's to Twombly, Chaim Soutine and Francis Bacon and allow a more personal vocabulary. Crow is young and I look forward to other shows and a more developed technique. Upstairs, a small and slimly gruesome show of paintings by Berlin based Andreas Golder should be entitled "What were you thinking, Jay Jopling?" – Or perhaps more cynically "Something for our younger collectors." If you are in the square, don't miss "The Temptation to Exist", the show at Yvon Lambert's space, which juxtaposes good works by Douglas Gordon and Andy Warhol against the most beautiful work, a still life by an unknown artist from the 17th century of a skull, which just goes to show that you can be a brilliant artist and still be forgotten through history. Jonathan Meese; "CASINOZ BABYMETABOLISMN" (Put DR. NO'S MONEY in your mouth, Baby) continues at Modern Art until February 21, 2009. Rosson Crow and Andreas Golder continue at White Cube Gallery until February 21, 2009. The Temptation to Exist : Douglas Gordon, On Kawara, Terence Koh and Andy Warhol continues at Yvon Lambert Gallery until January 24, 2009.