Every year the 80 official members of the Royal Academy open their doors to the struggling artists of the nation. They invite these artists to submit their very best paintings and arty stuff, then return most of them with a 'sorry, no thanks' note attached and fill the walls with their members' canvases instead. And boy do they fill the walls, this year with 1250 separate pieces of art filling just ten rooms. Most of the works are for sale, often at scarily exorbitant prices. Each work is labelled only by a number, not a title or artist, so you have to dip into the paperback-sized catalogue to see exactly what it is you're looking at...
"Hmm, looks like a wooden frame from a warehouse pallet, painted black then splattered with red paint. It's rubbish, literally. <checks catalogue> £105750! Scandalous!"
Fine art is just a licence to make money isn't it, art? Assuming your art is ever accepted by the establishment, that is. A couple of hours work, one gullible buyer, one vast profit. And, judging by the prices in the catalogue, it's the talentless crap that sells for the most money. Paint some brown splotches on a white background or, even better, draw a cute picture of a farmyard animal and you'll soon be rolling in it. Admittedly, however, some of the work on display at the Summer Exhibition was really very good. The best artists displayed work that was 'not for sale' and therefore managed to maintain a certain sense of respectability. On three occasions I thought "Ooh that's good", checked the artist in my little book and was pleased to discover that the piece I was looking at was an Opie, much respect. One room this year had a 'drawings' theme (including sketches by Sir Clive Woodward, Alexander McQueen and Brian Eno) which was really interesting, and there was also a room full of architectural models which I loved. Oh, and Prince Charles has a couple of watercolours on show, totally out of place alongside the more modern remainder of the collection but more than competent all the same. Nice sky, your future Majesty.
nb: There's another exhibition upstairs at the Royal Academy at the moment featuring the Art Deco world of Tamara de Lempicka. I'm sure her portraits were very good but I spent less than ten minutes looking around which definitely wasn't value for money. I counted 26 breasts though, so if watercolour mammaries are your thing then you might enjoy taking a peep before the end of the month.
