Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2011

I went along to the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition last week. I'd read a few reviews and seen Alastair's Sooke's entertaining special for BBC's The Culture Show, so I had mixed feelings about what to expect. On the one hand, there are clearly some big names in the show and these figures from the art world seemed to receive the most praise, while much of the public work was seen as rather second rate.

Jeff Koons' Coloring Book in the RA courtyard

I have to say, I actually really enjoyed the exhibition, but it did nevertheless have its highs and lows. Here are some of my favourites...

Michael Vogt
The exhibition opened in Wohl Central Hall which featured photographic works. I was particularly struck with the work of Michael Vogt who had two pieces in the show.

H34 Robert (Left) and H32 Daguerre (Right) by Michael Vogt

Working in contemporary fine art photography, these come from his Heterotopia: In Ruins series, in which the industrial ruins of today are collaged with an image of classical ruins. For me, there is a kind-of temporal jarring, a coexistence of incongruent times and worlds, which in itself holds a strange and haunting beauty.

Another photographic piece that caught my eye was by Royal Academician and previous Turner prize winner Gillian Wearing.

Titled Self Portrait As My Mother Jean Gregory, the image reminds me of Cindy Sherman's work in the sense of assuming other indentities. The photograph comes from a series of six, called Album in which Wearing  transforms herself into the image and pose of family members as taken from an old family album.

Cornelia Parker, herself a Royal Academician, was one of the big names in the show, and one of the highlights. Her work included the photographic Self Portrait With Budget Box as well as the stunning Endless Sugar in which 30 pieces of silver plate had been flattened and hung so that they appeared to levitate above the floor.

The latter was a real stand out, and I don't think any image can do justice to the sense of magic it seems to hold.

In another room, I liked the work of another Royal Academician David Nash whose work Funnel was a hollow Oak, as seen in the gallery image below.

In this same room, was a charming little sculpture by Dae H Kwon of a man casting a shadow. It had the potential, I suppose, to be quite kitsch, but in fact it was simple and beautiful.

The final piece I'd like to mention is a work of collage (surprise suprise - I do love collage). The work is by Simon Leahy-Clark, and called Library II.

The intricacy of the collage was really quite something. Each part, for instance a man's face, is composed of scraps of many faces, and as an overall image it just worked.

The Summer Exhibition 2011 is on at the Royal Academy until 15th August 2011.