Joshua Reynolds sports a red sash, a steel band is playing, Jake and Dinos
Chapman’s steel dinosaurs look cross and, in the almost-sunshine, people are
drinking latte while obvious artists – it’s the clothes, functional and
flamboyant – stride in through the portico of the Royal Academy of Arts. The
Summer Exhibition is about to open. Wimbledon, Henley and Ascot can’t be far
behind. Hats are being freed from their boxes. The Season is upon us.
“They should hold it in winter,” grumbles one academician. His point being, of
course, that, as an aspect of the Season, the summer show is still seen by
some as a cosy amateur event, a moment when weekend painters can send their
canvases to Piccadilly in the hope of being exhibited in some of the best
rooms for displaying art in London, or the world. The Season also has
upper-class overtones, and your average artist tends to think he is some way
to the left of Mao. (In fact, almost all are to the right of Dick Cheney.)
Either way, the summer show is still a touch embarrassing to the 100 or so
hardened pros, the academicians, who run the place. It’s more strawberries
and cream than the bread and dripping of high art. But the show brings in
money – about £1m, or 5% of total revenues – so they daren’t touch it.
Artists grumble – it is their way – but in fact they should be pleased. The
amateur side of the show has been steadily suppressed over the past few
years. This year, it’s barely noticeable amid the works of the superstars.
Who can seriously grumble about a few accomplished weekend works whenthere’s
a stupendous Hockney, a haunting Bill Viola, anotherhuge Anselm Kiefer, and
countless others? There’s also a dazzling reworking of Seurat and a
self-portrait by Michael Craig-Martin, an RA for just four months. (He’s an
old friend, so you can discount for bias, but his new stuff is honestly
fantastic.) He is my guide round the show on Varnishing Day, on which
nothing is actually varnished, but the pros gather to mutter, drink
champagne and eat canapés in a left-wing kind of way.
“There’s something absurd and ridiculous about it,” muses the Irish-born,
American-raised Craig-Martin. “It’s a strange English thing, like Wimbledon
or Henley.” And he’s pretty relaxed about the amateur involvement. “It’s
good to see a modest ambition truly achieved,” he says approvingly of a tiny
still life of crockery. “Much better than some overambitious failure. Not
that people shouldn’t be ambitious, but I don’t like those efforts to be
contemporary by people who really don’t understand what it means.”
Craig-Martin’s amiable urbanity should not disguise the fact that he has
always been a radical artist and, as a teacher at Goldsmiths, nurtured some
of the most successful YBAs: Gary Hume, Damien Hirst, Sarah Lucas and many
more. He graciously declines to see his invitation to join as symbolic, but,
of course, it is as much of a gesture as the RA membership recently granted
to Tracey Emin. She has expressed surprise that she wasn’t required to grow
a beard, a reference to the indefinable fustiness that clings to the place.
For the truth is that, in spite of 30 years of revolution, the Royal Academy
is still fighting its old identity as the enemy of modernism and the patron
of the safe and the earnest amateur. A few RAs grumble that some of the
brightest and best young things have refused membership of a “fuddy-duddy”
organisation. They also moan about the head-clutching monthly meetings of
the council, consisting of 13 constantly rotated members, who make the
decisions. “They’re always struggling with these 18th-century rules and
having endless arguments,” says one. “At the Tate, there’s a chairman who
runs the meeting and gets things done.”
There are also three annual general-assembly meetings of all the RAs.
Craig-Martin was startled by what he saw at the first of these. “It was
incredibly bohemian. Nobody has been bohemian like that since the early
1970s. The art world today is definitely not bohemian. And there were all
these people being gently rude to each other in that English way.”
This is a very shrewd observation. Modern and, until recently, contemporary
art were always built on a foundation of struggle and rejection. The
misunderstood genius on all fours before his easel in a dingy garret is an
image that seems intrinsic to the idea of the modern. It was created by the
initial academic rejection of the impressionists and, subsequently, by the
revolution of high modernism. It was seldom quite true, of course, but it
embodied the general truth that, unlike the founders of the RA, modern
artists tended to see themselves as outcasts or subversives.
Such a self-image is now absurd. Emin and Hirst attract controversy, but they
are Establishment figures. Art is integrated into society as never before.
The RA is thus juggling three identities: that of its founders, that of the
bohemians and that of the new, glossy, globalised marketplace of art. Or
perhaps the last is a reversion to the first. But even if that were true, it
is a fault line for the academy. The demographic of its membership is older
than that of the contemporary-art business. There are 80 academicians, but
once they reach 75, they stay on as members, so the average age is high. The
old, cranky bohemians still have apowerful voice.
That is one reason why there is more – much more – head-clutching to come. But
there are two other factors that mean the academy is about to face a new
struggle over its identity that may well dwarf those of the past. First,
Norman Rosenthal, exhibitions secretary for 29 years, is on the way out.
Like Blair’s, this is a very long goodbye. Nothing has actually been said,
but most assume a big contemporary show next year will be his farewell gig.
This show is expected to mark the start of a new annual contemporary season
at 6 Burlington Gardens, the building at the back of the site, freed up for
the RA with the departure of the Museum of Mankind. From A New Spirit in
Painting to Sensation, Rosenthal’s exhibitions have transformed the RA from
its old identity as a grumpy, English, antimodernist backwater into a
world-class venue.
Second, Charles Saumarez Smith, after what seems to have been a messy
departure from his job as National Gallery director, is to become secretary
and chief executive, a new post, on September 1. For the moment, he is
declining to discuss his plans. But the very fact that this post has been
created suggests that the business sense of the RA’s president – the
architect Nicholas “Nice Nick” Grimshaw – is being imposed on the place in
an attempt to make sense of the deep and contradictory roles played by the
academy.
It is a school with 60 postgraduate students, an artists’ club, the operator
of the summer show, a fabulous permanent collection and a global art venue.
Some say quarrelsome artists are not the right people to be in charge of
this unique hybrid; others argue that that is the whole point of the place.
The RA was established in 1768 by George III to uphold the quality of the
visual arts, and only artists can be expected to do that. Reynolds, whose
statue currently bears that red sash, was the first president. Furthermore,
they argue, the place remains cantankerously but creatively independent – it
receives no government funding of any kind – so the less it is like an
ordinary business with an ordinary board, the better.
The need to earn every penny must concentrate the mind of the academicians.
With the Rosenthal profit centre about to leave, the pressing question is:
who is the RA’s Gordon Brown, the logical successor? Nobody currently
springs to mind. But, in one sense, there is no problem. The visual arts are
currently immensely successful, both in terms of public interest and as one
of the most effective absorbers of the vast ocean of surplus cash that now
washes around the world. With its superb exhibition rooms and the addition
of 6 Burlington Gardens, the RA just has to ensure that some small fraction
of this cash washes into its own pool. On the other hand, this is a
viciously competitive business.
One ingenious solution that has been suggested is the abandonment of the post
of exhibitions secretary in favour of a rotation of outsiders, people who
could bring in special talents and contacts. It is a risky route, involving
high levels of uncertainty. It would also lack the focus of a single,
dynamic personality. Rosenthal, in spite of one attempted coup, has ruled
the exhibitions through sheer force of personality, and people will be
expecting more of the same. “He has,” says Craig-Martin, “a clear view of
the RA and what it should be. He has a sense of it being grand, with grand
spaces and a grand scale. And he has been committed to international
contemporary art. He’s a very hard act to follow.”
On the positive side, Craig-Martin believes Britain is in the midst of an
artistic golden age.
London, for him, is not only the centre of the financial world, but the centre
of the art world. The strange hybrid that is the RA is, perhaps, the
institution that should benefit most. It has its sensational rooms and, with
6 Burlington Gardens, it now has even more. This building became part of the
RA in 2000. In 2002, plans for its redevelopment were shelved. But a
masterplan by the late Colin St John “Sandy” Wilson, architect of the
British Library, is to be reviewed in the autumn. With care, the expanded RA
could become one of the grandest art venues on the planet.
For the moment, however, here is this year’s Summer Exhibition, about 1,160
works selected from the 13,000 submissions. It has its traditional
“controversy”: Michael Sandle’s Iraq Triptych shows a naked Tony and Cherie
leaving No 10 amid a scene of carnage and corpses. And it has its mass of
bad or merely routine work. There is also the continuing tradition – an
18th-century habit – of overfilling the rooms. Paintings are hung
four-deep, and the architecture room is madly stuffed with models whose
provenance is hard to decipher. Craig-Martin tuts and mutters about the way
some paintings are simply lost in the clutter on the walls. Even a big
Anthony Caro sculpture – a good one – is reduced by being placed
in a smallish room surrounded by far too many paintings.
Yet, in a way, that’s what it’s all about. The clutter makes the smaller gems
feel like discoveries, and there’s an engaging ebullience about the mad
desire to fill the space. You feel you are not here to gaze in quiet
contemplation, but to drown in art. With the art of hanging now raised to
such a finely tuned, connoisseurial pitch, this comes as an odd kind of
relief.
There is also the communal jollity of the occasion. At the varnishing, of
course, everybody knows everybody else, and it’s one long cocktail party of
back-slapping, hugs and mild bitching. As the crowds thicken, I keep hearing
the sharp whisper: “Shush, the artist’s behind you.” You don’t hear this at
the National Gallery or the Tate. But even on public days, the Summer
Exhibition has an air of a meeting of friends, a communality wholly absent
from the average blockbuster show.
And the best is very good indeed. Craig-Martin and I agree that the giant
Hockney – made up of 50 separate canvases – is one of his best
ever. Called Bigger Trees Near Warter or/ou Peinture sur le motif pour l’âge
postphotographique, it is a triumphant vindication of his obsessive pursuit
of the perfect expression of what painting alone can do. Even the splashes
from his brush are challenges to the capabilities of the camera. On the
other hand, there is also an exceptionally fine room dedicated to
photographs, one of which turns out, on closer examination, to be a painting.
So, the Royal Academy, with its steel bands and dinosaurs, may be suffering
from multiple-personality disorder, but to me it looks alive and well –
quarrelsome, neurotic and part of the Season, certainly, but simultaneously
bohemian, contemporary and still the repository of that strange impulse, in
the midst of enlightenment England, to sanctify and protect the best things
on which the human eye can rest. Mad as a snake and solemn as a statue, it
remains one of our most bizarrely accurate mirrors.
www.bryanappleyard.com
Pick up a young master at the degree shows
After three years spent liberating traffic conesand talking Baudrillard in the
pub, art students are having the busiest weeks of their life. Degree shows
can be make-or-break, determining whether a career as an artist is even
feasible. But the pressure to develop business savvy is such that lazy
stereotypes no longer apply.
Prices at degree shows usually range from £300 to £1,500, but collectors
seeking a bargain should think beyond the capital. “Stronger work often
comes from outside London, as these students feel they have more to prove,”
says Isobel Beauchamp, a co-director of DegreeArt.com,an online gallery that
assists graduates with sales. “Some people have this arrogant idea that a
big-name college is enough to carry them through to the next stage. But we
get plenty of grovelling e-mails eight months later, asking for help.”
If you can’t attend the leading graduate shows (see below), DegreeArt.com,
which opens its own space, the Empire Gallery, on Vyner Street, E2, on June
21, is a good place to track rising stars. Also worth bearing in mind is the
increasing overlap between disciplines. The Royal College of Art is
presenting its design show, The Great Exhibition 2007, in a purpose-built
pavilion. It marks the 150th anniversary of its Exhibition Road site,
originally funded by the proceeds of the 1851 Great Exhibition. One-off
design pieces are now eminently collectible, too.
WHERE TO LOOK
Goldsmiths, University of London, SE14, June 15-18; www.goldsmiths.ac.uk
The YBA glory days were 15 years ago, and Goldsmiths may not gleam as once
it did; New Cross has made more noise on the music scene lately, with Bloc
Party and Klaxons. But its design students held a Second Life online show
last week and the roll call for art includes Sally Kindberg’s spirited
paintings and Adam Christensen’s videos.
University of the Arts London, June 16-26; www.arts.ac.uk
A clutch of London’s art colleges were quangoed in 2004 to give them more
clout. Camberwell, Central Saint Martins, Chelsea and Wimble-don now trade
collectively as the University of the Arts, but their exhibitions remain
separate. Expect a parade of unusual installations at Chelsea’s former army
barracks, next to Tate Britain. Camberwell’s Naomi St Claire-Clarke claims
to have created “the world’s largest hair sculpture”.
Royal College of Art, SW7, June 15-28; www.rca.ac.uk
Quality should come as standard at the RCA – the students are all
postgraduates – so who will stand out? By digitally scanning found
objects, Simon Ward creates oddly suspended still-life images. Also seeming
to float is Will Martyr’s hand-painted inflatable sphere, Ozymandias, a
“dazzlingly incongruous” kind of spatial “theatre”.
Glasgow School of Art, June 16-23; www.gsa.ac.uk Consistently strong
work is produced in Glasgow. Recent alumni include the satirical scribbler
David Shrigley and the 2007 Turner nominee Nathan Coley. Among this year’s
graduates are Jack Frame (good name for a painter), whose mystically charged
landscapes nod to Samuel Palmer, and the Manila-born Pio Abad, whose
pompadour prints bring a touch of Versailles to parodies of political
decadence.
Edinburgh College of Art, June 16-26; www.eca.ac.uk
In its centenary year, Edinburgh has a whizzy website and, fittingly for
the home of the Fringe, a series of comedians embedded in grassy knolls.
Chloe Philip has photographed Jo Brand, Simon Munnery and others half in,
half out of the sod. The Beckettian reference is inadvertent; she calls it
exploring the “transition between stage bravado and real-life
vulnerability”.
Manchester Metropolitan University, June 16-24; www.artdes.mmu.ac.uk
Manchester Metropolitan’s interac-tive-arts course is buzzing. Melanie
Warner has recreated a caravan and its contents in bright yellow: When
Painting Goes Too Far is inspired by “ridiculous dinner sets where
everything matches”. In a more traditional vein, Jamie Clough’s doleful
self-portrait has been shown at Tate Modern.
University of Derby, until June 15; www.derby.ac.uk/art
Bliss is it to be alive in Derby, with Premiership football next season
and, for art and design students, a £21m building at Markeaton Street
opening next term. Before that, a sterling degree show features Rachelle
Mabboire’s Beuys-lite ruminations on salt, Tim Morland’s nerdy archeologies
and Angela Press-ley’s sculptural tangle of Dorset memories.
Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, Oxford, June 16-24; www.theruskinshow.co.uk
Small is beautiful at OxfordUni-versity’s art faculty, with each year group
comprising only 16 students. Despite a catchy title, Action in Air and
Landing, its latest show, won’t expound a curatorial concept, but it will
reflect the “exchanges and discourses” that have preoccupied the class of
2007, among them the winner of the RedMansion prize, Nathalie Guinamard.
Richard Clayton University College Falmouth, June 19-23; www.falmouth.ac.uk
Cornwall’s fine artistic pedigree is maintained at Falmouth. The faculty’s
2007 show is still under wraps, but it would do well to be as intriguing as
Philippa Rushworth’s installation The Island Come True, which references
children’s toys and Peter Pan. A year after graduating, Rushworth is working
in a clothes shop. Give her a break.
Free Range, Old Truman Brewery, E1, until July 23; www.free-range.org.uk
The provinces pitch up in Shore-ditch for Free Range, a dizzying art and
design talent show. University of Wales, Newport brings its Show’n’Tell
Collective to the party; Staffordshire graduates practise Creationism (or
maybe not); and students from BathSpa (Beauchamp’s hottip) provide a
recommended intakeof Vitamin B. It’s quids in at Brick Lane’s curry houses
for the duration.
