Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2013
In the past you could tell it was summer because the sun was shining. It was a simple system, had worked for centuries and was easy to understand. Unfortunately it no longer applies. Nowadays if summer was defined as when the sun was shining it would be a few days in March, a morning in June and a long weekend in August. So in England we need another way to tell the seasons apart and luckily the Royal Academy provides one. You can tell it is now summer because Burlington House has thrown open its doors and the 245th edition of the largest open-submission exhibition in the world has taken to the walls.
Lecture Room, Summer Exhibition 2013. Photo credit: John Bodkin
Co-ordinated by Norman Ackroyd and Eva Jiricna the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition is a big show. Hung salon-style with pictures from floor to ceiling visitors can easily pretend they are a nineteenth century Parisians taking a stroll around the Louvre. Whatever you do don’t turn up with an hour until closing time and hope to see the lot. The List of Works which you are handed with your ticket is physically only a small book, but it is a veritable encyclopaedia with entries going up to 1270. 1270! There are only 1019 on show in the entire National Gallery! The galleries are open from 10am to 6pm, so if you arrive bang on opening time and stay until you’re kicked out you’ve got 480 minutes. Which equates to 22 seconds per picture. Though I suppose you could come again. Or visit on Fridays when the galleries are open until 10pm.
Maria Teresa 1, 2011 © Julian Opie and Lisson Gallery
I didn’t notice the map of the exhibition on page 16 of the List of Works, so after wowing at the sheer scale of Caro’s steel Shadows in the central Hall, I made my way round the show backwards. Not literally, I’m not mad, I suppose I really mean in reverse order. Not that it really matters with a show like this as each room is a separate exhibition of its own. Each has been curated by a different Royal Academician and focuses on different media.
The Adoration of the Cage Fighters, 2012 © Grayson Perry Photography © Stephen White
Room X was devoted to the tapestries of Grayson Perry. Together the six works were entitled The Vanity of Small Differences. I wouldn’t declare myself a tapestry authority, however that very morning I had been to the V&A, perusing Raphael’s tapestry cartoons for the Sistine chapel. I’m aware that doesn’t confer complete expertise, but I had at least seen another tapestry. Perry’s work is on a smaller scale and is not aiming for immortality or purchase by the Pope – or if it is he’s likely to be disappointed. Nevertheless, like Raphael at the V&A, Perry is lucky to have been given a room of his own. There is a continuity to the space that open-submission shows by definition lack. The series continues Perry’s interest in social mobility and aesthetic taste, the artist’s journeys through Sunderland, Tunbridge Wells and the Cotswolds informing the images and playing an amusing riff on Hogarth’s Rake’s progress.
Usually when you go to an exhibition you know whose work you will be seeing. Most of us can can spot – for example – a Damien Hirst work in a Damien Hirst show. Especially when there is a label next to it saying by Damien Hirst. However the Summer Exhibition has numbers, not names, by each work. To discover the identity of the artist you have to refer to the long List of Works. Which allows you to play the fun game – RA or not RA? You and a companion give your views on whether a painting is by an Royal Academician or not. With RAs generally having a recognisable style – or sometimes even more helpfully a large, legible signature – there will be a lot of agreement. However if you are right and your companion isn’t you get a point. The one with the least points at the end of the visit buys the other a cream bun. Or the one with the most points could buy a cream bun for the loser. Either way is fine, the most important thing is that everybody gets a cream bun.
The Royal Academy galleries are beautifully lit with natural light. In the Lecture Room I was drawn to two wild pastels by Anthony Eyton, one of St Paul’s cathedral and one of Liverpool Street concourse. Nearby The Latte Drinker by Jane Cornford suggests that the modern addiction to overly-milky coffee is destroying society just as absinthe did that of the Impressionists. Will we look back on this era when coffee is freely available on every high street with the same horror we have when we learn that in the past one of the lessons on the school curriculum was pipe-smoking? A childhood habit that has not been kicked in China, as documented by David Thurston in the photography room, curated by Anne Desmet.
Pill Packaging 2, Alex Hanna
Pill Packaging 2 by BP Portrait award participant Alex Hanna stands out on its wall in the Small Weston Room. It is clearly influenced in palette and subject by Signor Morandi. Updating the Bolognese master’s work, the vases and bottle have become prozac packets. Unlike the pieces that Morandi painted the subjects have no use and will just be thrown away – they even need supporting themselves. It’s not a positive message of mankind’s progress.
£60,000 of prizes are given out each year, including the Charles Wollaston Award, presented to the most distinguished work in the exhibition. This year’s winner was El Anatsui for his large outdoor wall-hanging sculpture Tsiatsia. He won £25,000 for his efforts. There is less on offer – indeed there is nothing at all on offer – for a new award entitled Best title of the Exhibition, which The Flaneur is instigating now.
And the prize for Best title of the Exhibition goes to…
Adrian Kidwell, for “One of those troublesome ‘sink’ housing estates we hear so much about.” Congratulations Adrian. Maybe by next year there’ll be a sponsor and a prize for this new award.
The Summer Exhibition opens on Monday 10th June and runs until 18th August. Tickets are £10 for adults, £6 for 12-18 year old and under 12s are free. The Royal Academy is on Piccadilly and you can get more information about the exhibition below.
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