The RA Summer Exhibition 2015

The current Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in London is the best I can remember in over 20 years, most of it good, very little bad or ugly, and the most enjoyable one too, with virtually no photography restrictions and images of all the works available on line. The co-ordinator, Michael Craig-Martin RA, has made the gallery spaces more colourful and reallocated the architecture and other themes within the Academy galleries. At which point I suggest that anyone who reads this post as far as this would, instead of continuing here, probably gain more from exploring the RA Exhibition website pages which include a short introduction by Craig-Martin, behind-the-scenes videos and personal selections by Sebastian Faulks, Grayson Perry, Cath Kidston and others.

But for the record, here are a few items which registered with me out of more than 1100 on show in this slyly cerebral Summer Exhibition. Even before going in, I liked Jim Lambie’s treatment of the main staircase with ZOBOP (above). Craig-Martin chose magenta for Gallery III, enhancing all the work there, including his own Untitled (Watch) (below centre).

In that gallery I was also struck by Gillian Ayres' Tremenheere (below top left), Chantal Joffe’s Megan in Spotted Silk Blouse (below top right) and Mick Moon’s Noon Fishing and Dawn Fishing (below lower left and right respectively).

Gallery I this year is given over to small works with the exception of Grayson Perry’s tapestry, Julie and Rob, (below). As explained here in a post in May about A House for Essex, Julie Cope is a fictional “secular Essex everywoman”. Her charm bracelet includes that county’s shield, a cassette tape (a generational thing) and the cause of her untimely decease – was there a particular choice of wild flowers for the bouquet?

The Large Weston Room (below) now has the architectural models and drawings – I sometimes wonder whether the notions on show will ever be constructed but inspiration has to start somewhere, as with Gehry’s Fondation Louis Vuitton.

The Small Weston Room, no longer crammed with small works, is given over to some impressive drawings in ink on torn pages by William Kerridge, installed there by the artist, for example Untitled (The Periphery) (below):

There were two abstract pieces appealed to me in Gallery IV: Christine Stark’s When D'You Last Think You Saw It? (below upper) and Marion Jones’ Bars and Triangles (below lower):

Galleries V and VII are given over to prints, scores of them. So here are just a few; John Duffin’s etching Thames Bridges East (top left below) and Julian Opie’s Tourist with Beard (top right below); and two with South West scenes, Catherine Greenwood’s Silbury Treasure and Iona Howard’s Goonhilly Downs (below lower left and right respectively):

Between V and VII, Gallery VI is arranged by Craig-Martin with several interesting pieces including Lisa Milroy’s Black Dress (below left) and Gary Hume’s The Blue Ground (below right):

which is in the background to this photograph of Anish Kapoor’s study of refraction, Untitled (below):

Gallery VIII provided many fine things, including another South West scene, Cyril Croucher’s PZ101 at Mousehole (below left, PZ indicates a fishing boat registered at Penzance, Cornwall) and two contrasting bronzes by James Butler, Soldier and In the Sun (below right, upper and lower respectively):

Gallery IX, arranged by Alison Wilding and Bill Woodrow around Michael Sandle’s monumental bronze, As Ye Sow So Shall Ye Reap: An Allegory (Acknowledgements to Holman Hunt) (below left), included some interesting political pieces like Bob and Roberta Smith’s Sir Peter Bazalgette's P45, positioned just below Allen Jones’ Salome, (below right):

and Emily Allchurch’s Babel London (After Bruegel) (below) with its warning signs:

The Lecture Room is given over to things sculptural, for example Antony Gormley’s series of six “Small” below:

Nicola Hicks’ Relic (below top) and Dido Crosby's  5 Sheep and a Goat (below lower) seem particularly flattered by the sky blue walls:

More challenging are Eva Rothschild’s What the Eye Wants (below top) and Phillip King’s The Unpainted Gum Tree (below lower):

Geoffrey Clarke’s Taunton Deane Crematorium Test Panel was at Crucible2 in November.

Finally, Gallery X is exclusive to Tom Philips’ A Humement (1966-2015), a page-by-page artistic reworking of an old book (below):

The RA Summer Exhibition 2015 ends on 16 August.

Julian Opie at the Holburne, Bath

One of the surprises provided by Julian Opie: Collected Works at the Holburne Museum in Bath is that it is his first one-person exhibition in a UK museum for over ten years, a period in which his work has been highly visible, for example on the covers of Blur: The Best Of and the National Portrait Gallery’s Visitor Guide (Alex, Bassist. Darren, Singer. Dave, Drummer. Graham, Guitarist, 2000 and still from animation, Julian with t-shirt, 2005, below):

Another surprise in the show is  Opie’s personal collection of art which includes sculpture from ancient Egypt and Rome, 17th and 18th century paintings and sculpture (works by Lely, Reynolds and Romney) and Japanese prints. Items from his collection occupy half of the display in the Holburne, juxtaposed with the other half which consists of works by the artist since about 1995 (Lely’s Portrait of an unknown woman, Opie’s At home with Maria 2, 2011, below left and right):

Opie makes use of new technology such as 3D printing, vector drawing and computer-animated LED and LCD screens, eg Marina in purple shawl, 2010:

Opie’s technology-based work is often associated with that of Michael Craig-Martin, his teacher at Goldsmiths, though I was reminded of Patrick Caulfield’s use of flat areas of simple colour bounded by black outlines. Animation allows more than one of a sitter’s facial expressions to be revealed in succession (eg Imogen, 2013), thought-provoking in terms portraiture’s ability to convey personality, given the Opie style’s lack of detail.

3D scanning and printing was used to produce the sculpture Reed 1 2012 (below left) which then had to be hand-painted, one of the sources for this being an Egyptian mask, 664-332 BC, (below right):

Other small-scale works fall between sculpture and painting, for example two of a series in collaboration with Royal Ballet dancers and staff: Caterina dancing, 2010, 10 Blue and 09 Red, both silkscreen on painted wood, below left and right:

Three sculptures (Aniela at the spring, 2011; 3 men walking, 2008; Peeing boy, 2012, right) are available for all to see in the garden of the Holburne Museum where Julian Opie: Collected Works continues until 14 September. The show will move to the Bowes Museum from 25 October to 22 February 2015. The exhibition catalogue includes interesting essays by Sandy Nairne, the Director of the NPG, and Julian Opie, and commentaries by the artist on the works on display.