A selection of this year’s exhibits. Courtesy of The Royal Academy.

The sun was shining, my ice cream was melting and my heavy sales-have-now-begun bags were making me a lopsided loony. So I sought solace in the courtyard of Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. A place which, surrounded by the The Royal Academy and various historical, wall-to-wall library-bearing buildings – such as The Society of Antiquities and The Royal Astronomical Society – has always deepened that feeling of London-love in my heart…

And so, with my rare romanticism kindled, I checked my bags into the cloakroom and ascended the stairs to this year’s much talked-about Summer Show – the largest open exhibition of contemporary art in the world.

Gallery I presented a selection of the late R B Kitaj’s works. Their juxtaposition of positive and negative aspects all in one image came to represent how I felt about the show as a whole.

Gallery II’s ‘Temple Painting’ by Ian McKeever (RA) managed to create the ‘coolness’ for which the co-curators, Paul Huxley and Mick Moon, were searching. McKeever’s 46 huge white ovals painted over a neutral background delightfully dominated the space.

Space was something that was in very short supply in the Large Weston Room. Luckily, talent was not. Whilst all the featured artists were there deservedly, I did feel that some of the pieces would have benefited from having more space to avoid the strange and unfair feeling of browsing the art section of Ikea.

Being a South Londoner, I was particularly taken by Susan Stockwell’s ‘Red Road Arteries’, accurately detailing my local roads in a way that made Peckham prettier than its ever been. James Fisher’s ‘Among the Taller Wood’ and ‘Untitled’ by Polly Huggett were further favourites. Allen Jones always delights – and this show’s ‘Jump’ and ‘Grip’ were no exception.

The Small Weston Room was just that – small. But during a wave of size-dysmorphia, a sea of selections had been hung there. Too, too many. Although, I did spot a few gems hidden amongst the claws of chunky frames. ‘Ladyboy, Backstreets Madhya Pradesh’ by Angie Braven was one such gem, whose bold, beautiful colours managed to give a depiction of something and somewhere exotically derelict. As in all the galleries, I counted an awful lot of orange dots in here, so I guess there was space enough to sell to those in the know.

Gallery III featured huge works of art, spaciously displayed and colourfully made. Albert Irvin (RA)’s child-like scribbles of glorious brightness made me smile and wish I had a spare £10,000. Lisa Milroy (RA) stood out in this show where I’d already seen so much flesh and sexual intonations (in the art, not from the fellow browsers – thank God, as I seemed to unknowingly ingratiate myself with a Saga tour). Milroy paints pictures of everyday, homely items and images – her ‘Thread, 2007’ was definitely one of my favourites.

And so to Tracey Emin (RA). Where I know you have been waiting to go. But I couldn’t wait to get out. The sign outside warned I might be ‘shocked’ by the exhibits Emin had selected for ‘her’ room. Well, I was. But not in a naughty, don’t-look-the-elders-in-the-eye way. It was more of an ‘I can’t believe it’s so dull’ kind of way. By creating a room so obviously designed to open mouths, it did the opposite. The silence in the room was surreal: as the sexually explicit works (such as a zebra shagging a woman) failed to seem daring, and in their volume appeared rather pointless and well, to put it in an artistically intellectual way, crap, really.
Emin’s own painting, ‘Ruined’, was pastel-pretty and easily the best in the room – hmm, maybe there’s something in that?
Elke Krystufek’s student-style photomontages of a menstruating woman with her period-blood all over (what I hope was her own) fingers take the place as my most-hated pieces in the entire show. Which is probably the strength of reaction Emin was hoping for - good or bad. 

I was rewarded for my viewing of this disappointing room by entering Gallery X.
It was fun and bright, with a city-centric and everyday life theme to it. David Tindle (RA) displayed lovely, filtered scenes of an exotic outside from an unseen inside whilst Anthony Green (RA)’s green depiction of ‘The Old Hall, Stiffkey, Norfolk’ dominated the room.

All in all, an impressive show. Although I will never understand what makes someone want to spend £25k on a sculpture that looks like intestines turned to stone (Victoria Ferrand Scott’s ‘Analagous Yielding’), my respect for our contemporary artists has once again grown. A great deal. And that’s something that many of the buyers at this show will most definitely be getting.

The Royal Academy’s Summer Show runs from 9 June - 17 August 2008.

Images courtesy of The Royal Academy.

Filed under: Art & Design, Big Smoke Soirees