To the 244th Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, where nearly 1,500 exhibits have been selected from over 11,000 entries, as usual ranging from Royal Academicians and well-established artists through to the less well-known and lucky amateurs. As usual you can buy almost all the exhibits. The RA website has a room guide; each room is curated by a different RA with a different theme. I went with my son and we liked the following (the number refers to the catalogue number):
1457 The Milkmaid, a photo recreating a famous painting by Vermeer, by Raeda Saadeh (£1,400)
1471 to 1473 right at the very end of the exhibition (like last year) three sweet giclee prints by Quentin Blake (£700)
8 Ken Howard‘s self-portrait in a cluttered studio in Venice (£35,000); I find these kind of slightly obscured, dirty realistic paintings a bit predicLeonard McComb, table but my son liked it
55 the striking polished bronze of a young man standing by Leonard McComb RA (£600,000)
261 Anomaly 1 by Peter Bill, a small, realistic painting of two mannekins kissing (£1,700)
265 Aldeburgh II – one of several Anthony Green RA paintings instantly recognisable for their cutout shapes and cartoon-cum-Stanley Spenser style and rudeness (£12,000)
277 Dressing for Work by Aman Mojadidi, a life size photo of a buff American-looking young man, carrying several revolvers, except he wore a long beard and turban like a jihadi
344 Black treacle by Joel Penkman, a two foot square ultra-realistic painting of a Tate & Lyle treacle tin (£1,500)
425 The End by Yosef Cohen, a sculpture of the mechanism of a cheap electric clock, stripped of the face to be just the little motor and three hands and the second hand painfully ticking from half past to quarter to and then falling back top half past. We both found this hypnotic and strangely gripping (£88)
558 to 563 a set of beautiful etchings of Scottish, Lake District and Norfolk scenery in black and white by Norman Ackroyd RA (£500 to £950)
569 to 572 the usual clutch of amateurish Tracey Emin polymure gravures which were by far the most bought-up items, festooned in red dots which means people have bought copies of them (they come in editions of 90)
824 Samson. My son really liked this enormous painting of a mountain done in paint larded so thick and rough onto the canvas that it had cracked. By the well-known Anselm Kiefer and not for sale (in the version on display the egg in the image I’ve linked to is replaced by a rifle. I think my son liked the rifle as much as the clotted paintwork)
836 My son’s favourite, Flood by Shirazeh Houshiary, 6 or 7 foot by 3 or 4 foot wide aluminium sheet covered in blue with abstract stripes giving a mysterious textured feel and concentrating in a rough black circle towards the top. (From her home page > Selected works > Painting > Flood.)
840 Chicken chair by Olu Shobowale, a gruesome lifesize sculpture of a double throne made out of old chicken bones, yuk. (£1,300). Reminded me of the throne of guns created by African craftsmen from decommissioned weapons and exhibited at the British Museum a while ago.
1165 Layed Back, a 3 or 4 foot square image of Snoopy made entirely of playing cards by David Mach RA (£21,600)
1189 It was also David Mach who created the leopard made from coat hangers, titled Spike, probably the single most striking artefact in the exhibition (£170,000)
1198, my personal favourite, I laughed out loud for a minute. Self-portrait as a litter bin by Michael Landy RA, a perfect rendering of a plastic litter bin except made in bronze (£26,000).
1240 Miss Sugar Cone Unsure a ceramic sculpture of half a dozen ice cream cones melting into each other by Anna Barlow (£1,600).
1250 Banded Throng by Stephen Cox RA, a set of 25 African style masks made of granite with bands of gold across them (£40,000).
1272 Feathered Child I by Lucy Glendinning an extraordinary sculpture of a child crouched on the floor, made of bird feathers (£12,000).
1297 Cloned Marmot with petbottle by William Sweetlove, a sculpture in silver-plated bronze of two marmots, their heads splashed with red paint. Made me laugh out loud (£3,500). On Google I found various images splashed with other coloured paints. Maybe it’s a whole series.
1475 Heaven’s Breath by Kenneth Draper RA, a wonderful 3D construction with metal slivers, like sperms suspended an inch or two over the surface. Very sci-fi. This image doesn’t do it justice, it’s much bigger and more haunting.
1188 Yogini: Horse by Stephen Cox RA. A 6 foot sculpture in granite of a woman’s nude body but with the head of a horse superimposed the length of its torso so that the horse’s eyes are the breasts and the horse’s nostrils are over the loins. Big, striking and disturbing. (£60,000)
1266 Spillage by Rebecca Griffiths, a big silicon and aluminium sculpture of a cloak slung over truncated shoulders, with no head either, but the (metal) cloak clinging to the outline of two shapely buttocks. The Turin Buttocks, as I renamed it. Them.
908 Walking Drawings, Cumbrian Heavy Horses I by Everton Wright, an enormous photo (lamda c-type print) of horses on a beach (£5,500).
1176 to 1180 pencil sketches of nude women by Ralph Brown RA. Not absolutely brilliant but suggestive, poignant, intimate, fragile cartoons of the female figure (£2,760).
579 to 581 three exquisite screenprints by Stephen Chambers RA (£1,350 to £1,430). Chambers exhibited a small set of similar dream-like images in primary colours on a paisley background last year, that time of figures falling in a dreamlike way out of trees. I like them a lot; they’re like good quality book illustrations; they have the same dreamy feeling as the Moomintroll books!
1461 Ndutu, a striking photo (ultrachrome in acrylic block) by well-known photographer David Usill.
From which I realise that I tend to prefer sculptures, and then prints and etchings and photos, to paintings; and prefer abstract or quirky paintings to more routine, ‘realistic’ ones. In my humble opinion painting is a tired medium in which it’s very difficult to do anything new; whereas there’s still lots of unexplored space in sculpture and objects and installations which can flexibly reflect, in unanticipated ways, the vastness of the world around us and the complexity of human experience.
Books & Boots 