Finally, a visit to The Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition!
Every year, before the summer holidays begin and chaos becomes the norm, my hubby and I will drop the kids off at school and pop into London for the day. It’s been another super busy week with book illustration deadlines, finishing off a large original for Art:Surrey in the autumn and then all the usual end of school year craziness as well as my eldest son finishing Primary School (sob!). So, I was really looking forward to a day off and last Friday we went to the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition and had a lovely lunch at The Ivy in Covent Garden (I do love their bathrooms!).
Even though I have now lived in London for over eleven years I have never been to the RA’s Summer Exhibition (kids, busy, kids, forgot to book, kids…you get the picture!) and it has always been something I have wanted to visit. It was the hottest day of the year, blue skies and lots of bustle, and thankfully the gallery was lovely and cool and very calm.
If you are interested in a bit of background it’s actually quite impressive! I’ll be brief, here we go….. the Royal Academy was founded in 1768 and one of its initiatives was to establish an annual exhibition for all ‘artists of merit’ to be viewed by the general public. The first summer exhibition took place in 1769 and it has been held every year since which is pretty amazing in itself! Each year a Royal Academician, such as Yinka Shonibare RA, Grayson Perry RA and Jock McFadyen RA, and this year sculptor Ann Christopher RA, oversees the exhibition.
There are over 1,700 works of art by famous artists as well as members of the public and £50,000 worth of prizes. So worth applying for both the professional and amateur artist!
The Summer Exhibition aims to reflect what is happening in the art world right now, showcasing work in all media, including painting, sculpture, photography, printmaking, architecture and film.
One of the things to remember is the Summer Exhibition is an CONTEMPORARY exhibition, something I am not sure my husband was entirely aware of! The pieces exhibited did form an eclectic mix of Contemporary art from beautiful pencil drawings, to a hanging pair of shoes, detailed Lino prints to splashes of paint! The reality is there will be work that isn’t necessarily to your taste but due to the shear quantity you will always find something you can appreciate.
All work was numbered and you needed to purchase a book with the artists name, artwork’s title and price which I found a little disappointing. Firstly, visitors have already paid to enter the exhibition and then needed to buy a book for basic information on the art displayed. Surely by labelling work properly it is supporting and promoting the artists exhibiting as well as giving them kudos for exhibiting at the RA. It’s also not exactly making it easy for people to contact those artists directly during or after the exhibition.
There was however so much to see, I found I needed to walk around a few times to really take it all in! I was naturally drawn to pieces with lots of detail especially where you could really appreciate the talent and skill. I loved the detail of the pencil drawing of this majestic tree on a piece torn paper; I liked the contrast and the ‘more you look the more you see’ textured detail.
This piece also caught my eye. It was one of many fabric and embroidery pieces and I think they really enhanced the exhibition. The artist exhibited an embroidered brain from the ‘neat’ front and ‘messy’ underside. Going back to my preference for labels, I would have liked to have read a little about each piece of art to better understand and appreciate them; this was definitely one of those!
The artist of these pieces painted buildings beautifully on pieces of concrete. I don’t know if the concrete was actually from the buildings they painted as again there was no information, but I would like to think they were. They were encased in Perspex boxes almost like precious museum exhibits to preserve what once was. And I thought it ‘worked’!
I particularly liked this artwork. Each little piece was made from thin porcelain strips layered in the box frame. It reminded me of the delicacy of sculptor Eva Hesse who I discovered at university; the use of the materials, working with them and not against them, and appreciating their properties for what they were. There was skill yes, but also a lot of patience!
Walking around I often didn’t agree or could understand why certain pieces of art were placed where they were on the gallery walls. Several small pieces were exhibited pretty high up which meant I really couldn’t see as much of the detail as I wanted to. There were so many really large pieces (and I mean large!) that could have still been viewed clearly high up but for some reason these were placed lower. One of these was Tracey Erin’s figurative painting which also won an award…..! I’ll just leave it at that!
There really were so many pieces of art to see it was a little overwhelming. Certain pieces stood out for me and I have only included a few of them in this month’s blog. Did I enjoy the exhibition? Yes, although I feel there is still an ‘exclusive club’ vibe to the Royal Academy. Did I like the pieces of art? Some of them very much so, others I could appreciate and then the cynical part of me wondered whether certain pieces were included in the exhibition (and won a prize) due to the artist’s name rather than the creativity, originality and quality of the pieces themselves. This also went for their placing on the walls! Would I go again? Yes I probably will. I did enjoy seeing lots of different types of art in a very beautiful building (it’s worth looking up!) but I do think the exhibition is very much geared up to sell art rather than expose and promote the artist. Will I ever submit my own work? Not sure it ‘fits’ but we’ll see… watch this space, you never know!!!
Kelly x
Here’s a few more of my favourite pieces in this year’s RA Summer Exhibition…..
