Royal Academy of Arts
12 June – 19 August 2018
This year, the Royal Academy celebrates its 250th Summer Exhibition, and to mark this momentous occasion, the exhibition is co-ordinated by Grayson Perry RA. Perry, alongside the Summer Exhibition Committee, celebrates the democracy of the world’s largest open submission contemporary art show by exhibiting a range of art being made in this moment in time with the theme of ‘Art Made Now’. For the first time, the Summer Exhibition spreads across the new RA and spills out on to the streets of London’s West End.
Highlights this year include the Royal Academician Anish Kapoor’s monumental sculpture Symphony for a Beloved Daughter, in the Royal Academy’s Annenberg Courtyard. In the Main Galleries, David Hockney RA shows two vast new works which combine photographs taken from many view-points into a single monumental image. These enormous photographic drawings, both over 7 metres in length, are an exciting extension of Hockney’s long experimentation with reverse perspective and his manipulation of photography. The Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos shows an enormous textile work Royal Valkyrie in the Central Hall which revisits and reinterprets palatial fashion with the colours and motifs traditionally from Nisa, a village in Portugal. Banksy shows a new work, Vote to Love, created from a UKIP placard and priced at £350 million.
Further artists exhibiting include Mona Hatoum and Tal R, alongside Royal Academicians Antony Gormley, Michael Landy, Richard Long, Bob and Roberta Smith, Wolfgang Tillman, Jane and Luise Wilson and Rose Wylie, and Honorary Academicians Bruce Nauman and Ed Ruscha.
The Summer Exhibition has been held each year without interruption since 1769. It provides a unique platform for emerging and established artists to showcase their works to an international audience. During its long lifetime, paintings, sculpture, drawings and architectural designs by household names such as John Constable, Joseph Mallord William Turner, Auguste Rodin, John Singer Sargent, Laura Knight, Zaha Hadid, Peter Blake, David Hockney and Tracey Emin have been displayed alongside work by first-time exhibitors, creating the distinctive visual character that draws thousands of visitors to the Summer Exhibition each year.
Staged to coincide with the Summer Exhibition of 2018, The Great Spectacle revisits important moments in the history of the Academy and its annual show: from its inception as a showcase for grand society portraits and epic history scenes, via its role in the fight for women’s suffrage and the impact of two World Wars, to its ongoing status as a platform for both established and unknown contemporary artists.
皇家美術學院在今年6月迎來了第250屆夏季展。此次展覽由格雷森·佩里和夏季展委員會共同策劃，從全世界範圍內挑選出約1300件不同媒介的藝術作品面向大眾展出。作為世界上規模最大的公開徵集作品的當代藝術展，夏季展旨在呈現“今時今日”的藝術，並以此加強世界藝術交流。今年尤其值得關注安尼施·卡普爾的大型雕塑《獻給親愛女兒的交響樂》和大衛·霍克尼從不同角度拍攝最終組合而成的攝影作品。塗鴉藝術家班克西的新作《為愛投票》也將展出，並標價35千萬英鎊待售。
夏季展一向不設主題，作品之間也幾乎毫無關聯，自1769年以來就以異常擁擠的拼貼畫似的布展聞名。與其相輔相成，《盛景：夏季展的250年》將同時被展出。以時間順序回顧重大歷史事件的藝術表現，呈現社會變遷。展品來自康斯特勃、特納、羅丹、薩金特、扎哈·哈迪德和大衛·霍克尼等等耳熟能詳的藝術家。
