A reassuring exercise in déjà vu
In times of crisis, people crave reassurance – and that is what’s on offer at this year’s Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, even though its traditionally jolly atmosphere strikes a peculiar note right now.
The RA’S courtyard, for instance, is brightened by a flamboyant, colourful sculpture by the British-nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare. But its gigantic piece of colourful fabric that flaps like a flag in the wind contrasts with the Union Flag flying at half-mast above Burlington House in memory of the victims of terrorism.
This week, of all weeks, is hardly the moment for a midsummer party. But the principal selling point of the Summer Exhibition – which has been held every year since 1769 without fail – is its robust reliability. In this regard, the 249th year does not disappoint.
So many recognisable artworks by well-known Royal Academicians (RAS) jostle for our attention upon the galleries’ walls that it’s hard to avoid playing spot-the-artist. Some of these RAS are still young and may be more relevant than fashionable. Others – and this is one of the idiosyncratic glories of the show – are remarkably hoary and out of touch. Yet I, for one, am glad the Academy can still find room for work which most curators would reject as reprehensible.
The bigger point, I suppose, is that the Summer Exhibition is the last word in déjà vu. Consider Cornelia Parker, this year’s official election artist, who has several works in the show including an ethereal, affecting sculpture of two silver-plated jugs, suspended on wire above a plinth. One of them has been flattened by a 250-ton press. The title, Alter Ego (Object with Unconscious), suggests a metaphor for the whirring of the mind. But, hang on, isn’t this all eerily familiar? Ah yes, back in 2011, I picked out Parker’s Endless Sugar – 30 antique silver-plated sugar bowls, flattened by a 250-ton press and suspended above the floor, as my favourite work of that summer show.
So, same old, same old: reviewing the Summer Exhibition is the art critic’s Groundhog Day. But it’s always worth considering whether the exhibition’s coordinator – this year it’s the painter Eileen Cooper – has done things differently. Frankly, though, I couldn’t see much evidence of her “vision”. Of course, there are strong individual works, including a powerful woodcut by Honorary RA Jim Dine, and Vanessa Jackson’s Wyndham Lewis-like abstract oil painting Splice. But there are also several stinkers, such as Frank Stella’s crazily tasteless wall sculpture Corner Pocket, and Marina Abramović’s phone-it-in photograph of herself, holding two spades.
The customary display of architectural drawings (yawn) is half-hidden in the Large Weston Room, while a cluster of works submitted by the public are buried almost out of sight in Gallery I, which resembles a batty old aunt’s attic.
This maximises the overall aesthetic impact but also undermines the show’s much-trumpeted claim to be “the world’s largest open submission exhibition”, with more than 1,200 works. That may be true, but the presiding impression is of a cabal of professional artists bickering behind the scenes as they jockey for position.
This, then, is not a vintage year: formulaic and insufficiently pepped up with big, bold new ideas. I left feeling I had encountered a placeholder, before the Royal Academy pulls out all the stops for the 250th anniversary.