The Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition runs until 16th August 2009. It's a bit like the FA Cup for the art world where the work of the "journeymen" of the art world can rub shoulders with that of UK and international stars like Damien Hirst, Sir Anthony Caro, Frank Stella and Cy Twombly.
And to pursue my footballing analogy a little further, the minnows are often blown away by the scale, ambition and sheer class of the Premiership players. But sometimes there are bravura performances by the lesser known participants whose work stands up well in this august company. So, here are my own personal selection of pieces which caught my eye, and I hope might catch yours on your own visit.
The first is 26 Enchanteresse by Allen Jones RA, the sculptor and painter. A half-life size bronze female figure standing on a stainless steel plinth, her body is painted to look as if she were wearing a green skin tight body suit. Very much in the style of his sensual mannekin figures, this sculpture greets you in Room I as you enter the exhibition.
There are two large woodcut prints by Katsutoshi Yuasa, 79 28 and 85 Echoes, which stood out for me in the Large Weston Room. Both are large in scale but have a delicate quality about them which give them the air of a faded photographic image, or memory. On the adjacent wall hang the etchings of academician, Norman Ackroyd; 112 Sybil Head - Co Kerry, 113 The Cliffs of Moher and 114 From Sutton Bank - Vale of York. His etchings always have a wonderfully moody quality about them.
The Small Weston Room defeated me as usual. Every square inch is covered virtually from floor to ceiling and my eyesight just isn't up to working out what is going on in these small paintings as I crane my neck heavenwards. Terribly popular with the public, looking for affordable purchases and able to put up the cramped viewing space, I lasted only a few minutes on a hot and humid June day. But during that time I did hover, perhaps predictably being a sculptor myself, over James Butler RA 's relief bronze 438 Portrait of a Girl Sitting in a Chair.
Very different to this traditional form and medium are two sculptures by Yoshimi Kihara, intriguingly made of folded newspaper; 680 Transmission .F in Room IV and 982 T. Circle in Room VII.
Room V offered a big, bold, dramatic, conte drawing by Jeanette Barnes, 753 Sheikh Zayed Road, Dubai, which buzzed with the energy and activity of the construction activity captured in the drawing. This room also contains my own choice for "best in show", the sculpture, 766 Deep Red Line by Jay Battle. A pure white, simple egg-like organic form in alabaster it is incised with geometric lines of red pigment, capturing my attention with it's originality and simplicity.
That leads into the Will Alsop curated Room VI, for the architecture exhibits. Will Alsop has had the room painted black to show the architectural models, amongst which he has also included some small sculptures, to best effect. A great innovation, my only complaint might be that some of the exhibits were exhibited too high to be seen properly and that there were perhaps just too many exhibits for the space. Highlights for me were: 780 L'Ex Monastero by Lidia Palumbi, 811 Embodied Contours by Ben Cowd and Tobias Klein, Renzo Piano's study model for the roof of California Academy of Sciences 842, Sir Nicholas Grimshaw's models for the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Centre in Troy New York 839 and 928 Remodulated Environment by Alexander Mills. All in all, I found this room to be the most stimulating and refreshing in the whole exhibition and well worth visiting for this alone.
Julian Opie had an interesting computer animation, 1073 View from my Kitchen Window in Room IX, which perhaps signals some possibilities in digital art but for my last two recommendations I return to more traditional media. The Lecture Room contains the well over life-size, disturbing sculpture in carved limewood by Michael Sandle RA, 1200 Iraq, The Sound of your Silence and an oil painting in the classical tradition of some engimatic monkish heads in white hoods all facing an unseen focus off, 1119 Silent Reflection, by George Underwood.
The Summer Exhibition offers something for everyone amongst its 1200+ exhibits and I am sure I missed some great work but I content myself with having having the opportunity to have seen the gems above. I hope you will be intrigued enough to seek them out on your own visit and I am sure you will find others.
I am a big fan of the Courtauld Gallery. It has a wonderful collection of Impressionist and Post Impression painting but on a recent visit I was particularly taken by the Seurat Sketches in Gallery 11b. There are half a dozen oil sketches all about 8 x 6 inches, mostly done as studies for bigger work. I found myself drawn to them, going back again and again, to study them. In these sketches Seurat is experimenting with techniques and working with a limited palette. I found them very fresh and exciting as works in their own right.
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