Georg Baselitz, Freund 66 (Remix). Courtesy the artist
Exhibition Review - Katie Alice Fitzgerald battles her way through the crowds for the Royal Academy Summer Show - running until August 17 2008.
As I muscled my way into the RA Summer Exhibition, it struck me that the first Saturday afternoon is not the most idyllic time to witness an exhibition which itself requires the same physical and mental stamina as a cattle market.
This pressure cooker of viewing reaches its hottest in The Weston Rooms, particularly the smaller of the two where on a Saturday one would have to be pretty determined even just to enter the space let alone view the works. In 1784 Gainsborough withdrew paintings from the Summer Exhibition over their hanging placement and as the tradition for the very tightly packed from eye-level up continues, one can understand his dispute.
It is an understatement to say that many works are lost in the art jungle, which seems to take place annually at the Summer Exhibition, however there is a strong sense of triumph when a painting leaps out and you can experience a moment of chemistry between you and this chosen piece.
The event is a staple in the British calendar and has been for the last 240 years. Only once a year do the public get a chance to wander the galleries whilst supping champagne and munching mixed nuts and suddenly the galleries become more than exhibition spaces for contemporary art, they become spaces of sociology.
RB Kitaj, The Bells of Hell, 1961. Courtesy James Hyman Gallery, London
One of the pleasures of the Summer Exhibition is the people watching. All types flock to this annual event, from wizened old art buffs keen to size up the new breed of contemporary art to flashy city types, bursting to offload some serious cash. In terms of people the summer exhibition has it all, in terms of art, not quite but it’s getting there.
This year’s exhibition has been co-ordinated by Royal Academicians, Gorden Benson, Tony Cragg and Humphrey Ocean; their theme being ‘Man Made’. Supposed highlights have been cited as Tracey Emin’s room of chosen works, Jeff Koons’s ‘Cracked Egg (Blue)’ and the memorial gallery to RB Kitaj RA who died earlier this year.
Tracey Emin’s room is quite rightly prefaced before entry ‘There are works in this gallery which are shocking’. Whilst that is obviously to be taken literally it is also apt in a more colloquial sense! Some of the works in this gallery are shocking – shockingly bad!
There’s the expected nod towards old friends – Julian Schnabel and Damien Hirst, neither of whose contributiones are remarkable, and then there’s the nod towards her other old friend – explicit sexual content.
Christoph Ruckhaberle, Frau mit Guitarre. Courtesy of Sutton Lane, London
Works that are interesting include the much talked about video of a naked women hula-hooping with barbed wire by Sigalit Landau – acutely mesmerising, a porcelain sculpture by Rachel Kneebone which depicts a tangle of female legs and torsos which morph into curiously sexual and plant-like manifestations.
These are intermingled with a large free-standing depiction of a zebra mounting a women by Matt Collishaw another old friend of Emin’s, whose contribution is again not that interesting, and a small mound of human hair titled ‘Hair of the First Girl I Ever Slept With’ by Matthew Fullerton which deserves not much more than a bored sigh. Emin and her compatriots have once again churned out some predictable ‘shocks’.
One of the rooms which does however deserve credit is The Architecture Room. The president of the Royal Academy, Sir Nicholas Grimshaw, contributes alongside other superstar architects, Zaha Hadid and Norman Foster.
The theme ‘Man-Made’ comes to life in this room as architecture here is displayed as an emotionally diverse artform both in its execution and its result. Grimshaw’s ideas, which fuse dance and architecture, explore how one’s environment affects us as humans in movement and shelter. The plans displayed at the Summer Exhibition will be brought to life in a performance piece held in the Royal Academy courtyard on Friday July 11 at 6:30 and 8pm, admission free.
Whilst the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition struggles to teach us anything much about art, it does provide an important platform for contemporary artists both known and unknown to display works in a completely democratic environment – unless of course you’re friends with Tracey Emin, then you get to wave down at the masses from your phallic-shaped pedestal!
