Another Annus Mirabilis, Another RA Summer Exhibition, No 258, which all kicked off in 1769, the year of Napoleon Bonaparte’s birth, so it’s always had big boots to fill. 1769 also saw James Watt’s patent for the Steam engine being granted. This year’s show’s Station Master on the Piccadilly, “Lots of Art in one Place,” Express, features Ryan Gander and his large inflatable balls. Mr Gander’s expansive assets are a much-needed injection of conceptualism into the storied exterior & interior rooms of Burlington House.
This annual, ephemeral artistic jamboree has become a recurring staple of BBC arts programming, which has increased the media’s thirst for the whole spiel, year after year, and they barely have any wall space left every summer.
Famished digital vultures were permitted to circle the 1500-plus carcasses of British art, left festering on walls, before the stampeding public engross, the six grand rooms morphing into a solid sea of roaming eyeballs. Health Warning! Be warned of the potential neck strain that viewers may encounter if they try to take it all in. If humans could fly, the RA summer show would come into its own; until then, it’s an endless compromise, a good metaphor for life.
This year’s theme is Dialogues, curated by Farshid Moussavi RA, so I will engage in conversation and find someone to listen to.
Here are my top ten picks from the show, not ranked to crown champion turpentine but rather to merit inclusion and slight discussion.
Cindy Sherman does what she does best in this striking, grotesque self-portrait, which showcases her unique superpower to repel and attract in equal measure.
30-plus hollowed-out menacing internally gilded rodents, by Zatorski + Zatorski, which adds to the slight whiff of conceptualism and plague in the air. A lack of inclusion could have resulted in a reverse Pied Piper situation on my hands, so they are included primarily for my safety.
Everyone is allowed to enjoy one whimsical thing a day, and this was mine. Little Fish created a fascinating snapshot of what the 1700s would have been like if brands were a thing and we could turn ourselves into walking billboards during a stroll with the offspring on the common
Mushrooms are everywhere; everyone loves fungi and Pedro Pascal. The inclusion of these shaggy tapestries in the show is an essential milestone in bridging the gap between mushrooms and humanity, which has taken a bit of a PR battering due to the optics of “The Last of Us.”
The walk of shame is a dance we all should undertake at least once; the more you do, the easier it gets, and this bold photo bottles the essence of this magic moment like a fancy perfume from Paris, “Eau de Last Night” by Anna Fox.
If this semi-circular beauty of modernist architecture isn’t familiar to you, then it’s only a short tube journey to Kings Cross’s main concourse. Drawing doesn’t always get an easy ride in these automated times. Still, you’d be hard-pressed to find another medium capable of capturing the energy of an environment in such a visceral and dynamic manner by Jeanette Barnes. Long live the graphite gang.
The former Professor of drawing at the RA’s depiction of the crucifixion is undeniably Tracey. However, her expressive lines of misery emanate with physical and emotional pain. The work does the heavy lifting, which is a rare departure from the usual use of evocative language to purloin meaning into her imagery. Before you’ve had a gander, Jonathan Jones in The Guardian declared this piece the most important since that of the late Lucian Freud. Still, he often gives her a disproportionate amount of flowers, so let your own experience guide your last judgment upon viewing this in person.
Unfortunately, the more we go on, the less we seem to learn from history. As economies go south, we point our fingers north and blame immigrants as they are an easy, largely voiceless target, which satisfies the Right’s hunger for someone to blame. Sense, compassion, and facts aren’t a prerequisite for right-wing views, so it’s unfortunately becoming a broad church. This painting by Adam Forman possesses tremendous power in its total silence and brutal honesty about the nightmare journey many are forced to undertake to seek refuge and shelter. I wish they had printed this one on the postcards.
Ron Arad has been a trailblazing industrial designer since he departed Tel Aviv’s Bauhaus buildings & settled on Camden’s shores. This idiosyncratic shelving unit deserves to be on a gallery’s wall, and if we are being honest, we wouldn’t mind it on most of our walls, assuming it could be matched with the sofa and curtains.
I might have saved the best for last, but I needed you to read to the end so I could get paid. Otherwise, it’s back to the pen and quill for me, next article. Ryan Gander is rightfully given his flowers and all the prime real estate at the RA in celebration of his playful inflatables, which are like X-Ray versions of props from the Prisioner (A 1960s British action series, for those born post millennial)…… adorned with essential questions to bounce around in our minds and are also available in smaller forms in the gift shop (excellent gift shop, 8 out of 10). He certainly feels like he’s on the right trajectory to becoming a thinking man’s English Jeff Koons with a sprinkle of Paul McCarthy thrown in, perhaps, or maybe I’d like him to be more like an English Paul McCarthy as we already have a McCartney and not enough large Christmas Trees shaped like an adult object on public display.
Most of the works are available to buy, and proceeds from the Summer Exhibition directly support the exhibiting artists and the RA’s charitable work, including training the next generation of artists in the Royal Academy Schools.
The show runs until 17 August. Get there for the opening. The loos are located on the lower ground floor.
Words/Photos Oliver Malin Top Photo © Artlyst 2025