‘Work 1’ of the 258th Summer Exhibition greets you before you have even passed through the portals of the Royal Academy. Rainbow-striped letters arranged in an arc, the words ‘THE SONG IS YOU’ are displayed on four grey metal rods in the courtyard of Burlington House. By exhibitor Ugo Rondinone, the price for the installation is ‘on application’, for which read: not for the likes of you. No matter, I’ll save my pennies, thank you very much. Not being able to work out WHICH SONG I AM, I carried on regardless, conscious that I had 1,850 exhibits still to view.
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A highlight of the summer season, the Summer Exhibition is an open submission show, meaning an artist of any standing can become an exhibitor if their work is shortlisted by the committee of Royal Academicians, some of whom also include their own work in the show. Viewers of the exhibition can buy the exhibits and, thrillingly, watch a red dot being placed on the gallery label. Thankfully, one doesn’t have to be Steve Cohen to purchase a piece as the prices begin at £100 but rise steadily to £180,000 for the bigger ticket works such as ‘The Goddess’, an oil by Paulina Olowska.
Much is made of the display of the bewildering array of artworks in the exhibition and ‘Exhibition Co-ordinators’ have tried, in recent years, to tackle what this year’s Co-ordinator, Ryan Gander, calls the ‘hierarchy’ of the viewer’s line of sight. One can only imagine how stressful it must be in an age consecrated to equality to attempt to give every exhibitor the chance to be seen, especially when it is simply impossible.
