But Is It Art ?!

Up to London yesterday for a visit to the Royal Academy of Art's Summer Exhibition, courtesy of JRT who as a "Friend" can get me in free. Which turned out to be only marginally less than what it is worth.

This was the second time I'd been to a Summer exhibition, last year being the first. Despite apparently "airy" rooms with high ceilings, the RA is oppressively warm and fairly crowded. If you were there to see a masterpiece, this wouldn't matter much, however the masterpieces were thin on the ground.

The idea of the exhibition, that pretty much anyone can submit work from which judges select the cream for display, is perfectly sound. The fact is that the number of submissions is so huge that some work receives barely a cursory glance and not all of what is selected is ultimately hung, as each room is curated by an academician, and some choose to space the work more widely than others. Consequently a couple of rooms are laid out like the pages of a crowded stamp album, with as many diverse (generally smaller) works displayed as will fit on the walls, while larger rooms contain relatively few (if often huge) canvases. So far, so messy, but there is clearly an unenviable dilemma of presentation, in step with the dilemma of initial selection.

Sadly, I doubt whether much of what is on show would gain a place on the wall of another gallery, let alone a home or office.

I must declare at once my ignorance of Fine Art. I'm interested in it, and if let loose in one of the great galleries (Tate Britain, for instance) will have no trouble identifying pictures humbling in their achievement and/or moving in their perception. The old saying that "I don't know much about art but I know what I like" still applies.

The Summer Exhibition, which includes drawings, paintings, sculpture and video should represent the best of what has been submitted. If it does, you have to conclude that the RA is losing its clout, in that much better work is not being submitted but just being sold on completion. That may be healthy, but the implied prestige of recognition by the elite is apparently being diluted or lost altogether, as the Academy hangs substandard work rather than leave the walls bare.

The exhibition includes a number of deliberate visual jokes, including a hand-written postcard asking that it be included as it wouldn't take up much space and would make the "artist"s mother proud. Unfortunately, much of the remaining content is also a joke, but made at the expense of the presiding body. There are unfinished sketches, badly finished (half-finished?) sculptures and paintings which might embarrass a ten year old. The subject matter includes numerous cats and dogs, badly posed nudes and portraits "stylised" as a barely plausible excuse for incompetence. As I observed to my host, all those years ago, when I avoided drawing people for my art homework because I couldn't "do" them, I needn't have worried as the inability was clearly shared by several of the exhibitors. Yes, I do know that Picasso could draw representatively but chose to adopt a more symbolic style. I have no reason to believe that some of the pictures on show in Piccadilly have anything more than plain ole incompetence to justify their appearance. And even much abstract work, which cannot be criticised for inaccuracy, still screams out for a dose of "Emperor's New Clothes"-style honesty. As in, "That's a bloody mess, mate. My cat could produce a more interesting effect."

Happily, there are many exhibits worthy of admiration, but that they are surrounded by so much offal detracts unfairly from their achievement.

Coincidentally, the gallery's upper floor is currently devoted to a wonderful exhibition of work by Pre-Raphaelite J.W. Waterhouse, much of it so exquisite it is almost unimaginable that any one picture took less than a lifetime to produce.Hopefully some of the exhibitors at the Summer Exhibition will visit it and realize that what they are doing is not worthy to hang in the same building!