whilst I can’t agree with The Guardian critic’s view that this year’s Royal Academy Summer Exhibition is a ‘sprawling dustbin of has-beens and never-will-be’s’ I did feel that compared to last year’s exuberant and playful exhibition co-ordinated by the ever-popular Grayson Perry, visually it does come across as somewhat dull. Last year Perry had the walls painted a bright yellow and went for colour and fun in many of his key selections and hanging decisions. His inclusion of a Banksy introduced a self-deprecating irony and humour to the show, whereas this year, another Banksy in the opening gallery appears to give him the status of an establishment regular. It was bound to be a tough act to follow.
This year’s co-ordinator, Jock McFayden, adopted as one of the criteria for selection how art ‘reflects the world in different ways’. This is all-encompassing (surely what this world’s largest open-submission exhibition should be about anyway) and clearly evident in the mix of painting and photography, abstraction and figurative works displayed in the main hall in an arrangement intended to be pleasing on the eye. For me it is, although on closer observation abstraction and contemporary approaches dominate the room, with what come across as polite nods to traditional figurative art in the placement of the paintings of Royal Academicians such as Fred Cuming, Ken Howard and Diana Armfield.