Summer Exhibition 2019


Underwhelming exhibition at the Royal Academy, their annual open-submission show hanging work by Royal Academician with art by amateurs.

I say underwhelming as I suspect I’ve been to too many of these and they are starting to look a bit samey. There was the usual electric variety of work but somehow this year it didn’t have the wow factor. When I come back to look at my notes in the catalogue I’m surprised at how few of the works I remembered despite saying I liked them.

I did like the hang of the large room 3 which included a large Anselm Keifer and a wonderful study in perspective by Ben Johnson “The Space Between Revisited”. The pictures had room to breathe and speak to each other. The architecture room left me with the usual questions about which buildings had been built and which were just fantasies. I loved a model for a new school in Erith which is just down the road from me so maybe I could go and look.

Works that stood out include the Tunnock Teacakes tiger, a barcode in russet colours called “A Glimpse of Autumn” by Anastasia Lewis, nine postcard sized sketches of the London Underground by Louise Soloway Chan and “Islington Back Garden with Self” by Melissa Scott-Miller.

My favourite picture was a lovely rather geometric picture of a harbour entrance by Vanessa Gardiner but it was hung too high to get a decent photograph. I also loved this small sculpture made from a book but I now can't find it in the catalogue to identify it! 

Closed 15 August 2019

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Anonymous said…
Thank you! I value it.
10 September, 2019
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