Untitled
The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition opens today.
I love it. It’s the fotoLibra of the art world, a chance for anyone to flaunt their wares and their talent alongside their more renowned colleagues.
A student had a postcard for sale at £1.99, just across the wall from a (dreadful) Tracy Emin at £90,000.
Somehow I preferred last year’s show, which was more — what can I say — painterly? The big set pieces last year impressed; not so this year, led by a very low rent Cy Twombly. I took some snaps on the iPhone, which only partly explains the low quality, and on flicking through them I realised how graphically driven I am, rather than abstract or illustration. That says a lot.
Here are a few of the pieces that caught my eye:
Wittgenstein’s Dilemma II by Tom Phillips. After much neck craning I made out “The limits of my language are the limits of my world.” That about sums it up.
This I loved, but it was spoilt for me by its pathetic caption.
UNTITLED.
Grrrr!
This is a tremendous piece of work by Elizabeth Collini, and I want it very much. It’s intelligent, mocking, funny, provocative and utterly pointless, and it made me think of squaddies whitewashing coal. Such care, such detail, such craftsmanship, to relay such a banal message. It sums up the futility of most of our working lives. We spend so much time detailing it with meticulous care. And it really, really doesn’t matter at all.
This was just as pleasing, but less understandable. Steve Rosenthal’s A to Zed was a London street atlas with all the buildings cut out, leaving only the streets. It was eerily beautiful. But why? What was the message, if any? And I couldn’t escape thinking — how long did it take? I would charge more than £2,000 for doing this.
All graphics. There were also some paintings. I’ll pick out one, by a young (26) Cardiff artist, Michael de Bono. His Second Sight pressed my buttons: dazzling, Daliesque hyper-realistic technique, baffling, mystical subject matter, plunging cleavage. Got it all. Except for the £48,000 price tag.
And if you make a special trip to see The Back Steps by David Royale, you won’t see this:
You’ll see it in reverse. Go and see what I mean.
And finally, two grumbles. I went around the exhibition, snapping at will with my very lo-res iPhone. No problems. Then I came across Damien Hirst’s Saint Bartholomew, Exquisite Pain, pictured here, and raised the iPhone. A trusty stepped forward. “No photographs, thank you sir.” “But it’s just a mobile?” “No photographs sir.”
I shrugged and turned away. Then a bloke walks up with a fuck you Nikon and a massive tripod and snaps away to his heart’s content, with the trusty looking benevolently on.
One law for them and one for us, eh? Well it’s not going to be like that for much longer. There’s an election coming up and … oh, we’ve done that.
And nothing’s changed. Nor will it.
The second grumble? There were 1,266 exhibits. 18 of them had the same title. I thought artists were supposed to be the creative ones among us.
UNTITLED.
Untitled? Give us a break. Use a little imagination.
Isn’t that what you’re paid to do?
