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Damien Hirst’s scissor-carrying skeletal man |
A brave step forward results in a better show
Gerald Isaaman finds the Royal Academy Summer Show much enhanced by some of north London’s finest artists
THE bankers, the politicians and the religious zealots round the world have all gone mad. So perhaps now it’s the turn of the artists, though the Royal Academy insists that the theme of this year’s Summer Show is Making Space, an open door to all that is unacceptable or daring.
Certainly we are fed a confused and intriguing picture by the giant Triton 111 stainless steel spoons sculpture of Bryan Kneale, on display in the entrance of its Piccadilly home for what is, remarkably, its 241st exhibition.
And inside there are some surprises in what is the world’s biggest art show, from Damien Hirst’s eerie silver skeletal man carrying giant scissors, to Tracey Emin’s childlike Mickey Mouse daub, the latest “sensation”.
Photography and videos are accepted for the first time and the excellent Will Alsop has added 3-D sculptures to the architectural section.
Some of the models are tucked away on high shelves and impossible to study properly. The fantasy builders of the future undoubtedly need their own separate exhibition, with Prince Charles being invited to open it. He might die on the spot from shock.
Indeed, now is the moment for the RA to go all the way, and turn the exhibition on its head, ending, in particular, the market mass of small paintings, drawings and prints entered by the unknown to the dustbin.
There are good things to applaud and some touching personal moments, such as Anthony Caro’s hulking, rusting Erl-King sculpture deliberately placed facing the sandy beach and green waves of the Days End acrylic by his wife, Sheila Girling. Is this an RA gallery first for the two doyen artists who live in Frognal, Hampstead?
Former RA president Phillip King, who lives in Savernake Road, Hampstead, has a little shelf of colourful minimalist plastic experimental designs. Yet they remain insignificant compared with fellow RA Michael Sandle (from Islington) with his limewood sculpture entitled Iraq: The Sound of Silence.
This is a stunning statement of our inhumanity, a hooded figure holding a bandaged, gagged baby between his/her knees, the only damning political outcry in the whole exhibition. Indeed it is singularly devoid of any serious social expressions on today’s ugly world, apart from two telling prints by Hampstead’s Paula Rego.
Tessa Jaray, from Camden Square, lifts the tempo to dazzle us with her shimmering yellow and pink perfect mixed media designs titled After Damascus. David Royle, represented by Kentish Town’s Beardsmore Gallery, gives us a multi-green man on The Back Steps, as he steps out into a garden of psychedelic, almost mental colours.
The true ability to draw with meticulous talent is demonstrated by Patrick Gilmartin, who lives in Pilgrims Lane, Hampstead, with his precise pencil entry of a police horse saddle.
And A Gust of Wind, Arrival No 1 by Evelyn Williams, from Finsbury Park, has a strange Spencerish feel to it, the symbolism of two women and one tiny baby pulling you in to explore it in detail.
Amid the amateur clutter, I spotted Nadia, a blue-eyed blonde nude exposed on a love seat by Ishbel Myerscough, from Colebrooke Row, Islington, and, in the photography, a dead Princess Diana in a car crashed by Inez de Coo, from Raveley Street, Kentish Town.
Overall, it is a much improved show than previous years and, given the impossibility of exhibiting so much diversity fighting each other in dramatic contrast under one roof, a brave step forward.
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