Summer Exhibition 2024 at the Royal Academy, London

Bass Rock (Songs of the North Volume 1) - David Moore and Kate Davis
 woven music score

This year the RA Summer Exhibition's theme is ‘Making Space’. A friend very kindly took me along last time I was in London and it was great to peruse all the exhibits (over 1700 in 13 gallery spaces) and also a bit overwhelming. Here are a baker's dozen that caught my eye...

Bass Rock (Songs of the North Volume 1) detail - David Moore and Kate Davis
 woven music score - detail

Bass Rock by David Moore & Kate Davis was my favourite piece - not only because I'm familiar with the place as a landmark but also the picture's construction and that you could see the musical notes when you got close up.  It was woven from a musical score.

Super stitched, narrative piece by Sophie-Louise Pywell - very thought provoking...

A Common Thread - Sophie-Louise Pywell
hand embroidery on calico

A Common Thread (detail) - Sophie-Louise Pywell
hand embroidery on calico

A Common Thread (detail) - Sophie-Louise Pywell
hand embroidery on calico

Very nostalgic piece by Jane Chipp...

Vestiges - Jane Chipp
collage using antique papers

Who doesn't love a pencil!  I loved that Minty Sainsbury saved all these pencils and all that work they represented...

Practise - Minty Sainsbury
272 pencil stubs collected over nine years of drawing

Practise (detail) - Minty Sainsbury
272 pencil stubs collected over nine years of drawing

The textures of the porcelain and the colours were fabulous in this piece by Julie Massie... 

Vast Seas in Green to Grey - Julie Massie
porcelain on wood

Chunyoung Yang's work made me smile...

Love Myself - Chunyoung Yang
knitting wool and cotton filling

Loved the textures in Rachel Pearcey's A Space Redefined...

A Space Redefined - Rachel Pearcey
thread on cotton twill throw

A Space Redefined (detail) - Rachel Pearcey
thread on cotton twill throw

What I loved about Sam McKechnie's piece was that it offered so many possibilities of stories that could be told...

Clean - Sam McKechnie
glazed wooden box containing found objects, pastels and paper collage

Alison Aye made me wonder whether the end of the world was near...

Shifting to the Moon - Alison Aye
paper hand-stitched to tea towel

The colours and textures appealed in this piece by Viola Cullip...

Never Mind the Gaps - Viola Cullip
recycled sari fabric and handdyed muslin with hand and machine embroidery

I loved this mosaic from the Hackney Mosaic Project...

Some Hackney Birds - Hackney Mosaic Project
glass and ceramic mosaic

These were Abigail O'Brien's prints of the original stitched pictures which was hard to tell from where you could view it.  In fact throughout the exhibition, there were a number of prints of textiles that looked like the actual textiles, even up close...

Mentation I and Mentation II - Abigail O’Brien
archival print 

and of course I loved this by Neville Godwin...

Nothing to See Here - Neville Godwin

screenprint with hand distressing and applied glitter

This is an image of the postcard as the print was too high up in the gallery for me to get a good picture.

In addition, outside in the courtyard, this monumental piece by Nicola Turner was something to behold.   Tendrils, which Turner has twisted and stitched together, come off and wrap round the statue of Joshua Reynolds in a rather foreboding way. Turner uses found objects including grand piano legs, chair stuffing and horsehair from old mattresses. In using these objects she gives new life to what would otherwise be discarded.  I found this grimly fascinating...

The Meddling Fiend - Nicola Turner
mixed media including horsehair, wool, wood and brass

The Meddling Fiend (detail) - Nicola Turner
mixed media including horsehair, wool, wood and brass

The Summer Exhibition is on at the RA until Sunday 18 August 2024.  I think you could go many times and notice different things every time. There's so much, you're bound to find something you like.  There was a large piece by El Anatsui and some Cornelia Parker pieces that I liked and many smaller pieces that I enjoyed too.  There's lots for sale if you want to buy something, from less than £100 to many thousands of pounds - or you could just buy a postcard!

Ai Weiwei at the Royal Academy, London

For those of you who missed Ai Weiwei at the RA in London ...
 

Tree - Ai Weiwei 

In "Tree", sections of dead trees from Southern China are pieced together to make eight artificially constructed trees - a comment on the geographically & culturally diverse peoples brought together to form the state sponsored "One China" to protect China's soverignty.

Grapes - Ai Weiwei

The work "Grapes" is made from 27 Qing Dynasty stools, becoming "a useless object" but still appealling.

Straight - Ai Weiwei

Straight (detail) - Ai Weiwei

On the 12 May 2008 a severe earthquake hit the province of Sichuan in China.  Twenty schools collapsed and 5000+ students lost their lives.  Ai Weiwei and his team set about recording the names of all of those who had died - something the authorities were not willing to reveal.  The schools collapsed as a result of the being badly built.  This was attributed to corrupt local officials sanctioning the use of substandard building materials for personal gain.  After the earthquake Ai Weiwei collected 200 tonnes of the twisted rebar (the steel reinforcing rods from the concrete structures) and had them straightened to their original form at his studio to make "Straight," a memorial and reminder of what had happened and why.
 

Straight (detail) - Ai Weiwei

Names of all the victims of the schools that collapsed in the Sichuan earthquake

 

Bicycle Chandelier - Ai Weiwei

Bicycle Chandelier (detail) - Ai Weiwei

The Bicycle Chandelier brings together two elements seen in Ai Weiwei's work - light and bicycles.

Ton of Tea - Ai Weiwei

Ton of Tea (surface detail) - Ai Weiwei

"Ton of Tea" is one of the cubic metre series - objects of the same size but with different properties and textures but each with a Chinese identity.

 

Free Speech Puzzle - Ai Weiwei

The hand painted porcelain pieces above bearing the slogan "free speech" in Qing Dynasty imperial style form a map of China and highlight the lack of freedom of speech in China.

Fragments - Ai Weiwei

"Fragments" is constructed using architectural salvage from temples and furniture from the Ming & Qing Dynasties. The assemblage forms a map of China and Taiwan when seen from above and its skeletal structure hints at the fragility of the "One China" policy.  The ability of the visitor to walk through the stucture reflects the freedom tourists have to move through China in a way that Chinese citizens do not.
 

Cao - Ai Weiwei

Cao (detail) - Ai Weiwei

"Cao" is a marble scupture of a pushchair and grass.  It is made from marble from the same quarry as that used in the Forbidden City and Mao's Mausoleum in Tiananmen Square which gives the work a "monumental" quality while still being domestic in scale. Cao means grass but is also used as a swear word.

Only a small section of the exhibition is illustrated here.  It was really interesting and thought provoking - hope you've enjoyed the whistle-stop tour. 

Sensing Spaces - Architecture Reimagined at the Royal Academy

Alvaro Siza in the RA Courtyard

I was lucky enough to get along to the Sensing Spaces exhibition at the RA before it closed.  I wasn't quite sure whether I was going to like it but actually it was hugely enjoyable!  This seemed to me to be about experiencing architecture in a very direct way through the use of light, sound, smell, touch, structure, movement and participation.  Seven architects from around the world were involved.  

Alvaro Siza (Portugal) was represented in the entrance courtyard with columns reflecting the columns on the building.  



Inside Eduardo Souto de Moura (Portugal) had made casts of two of the archways between the galleries drawing your attention to the differences between them which otherwise might have gone unnoticed. 
 

Eduardo Souto de Moura's Cast Arch

Eduardo Souto de Moura's Other Cast Arch

Grafton Architects (Ireland) played with light and the contrast between light and dark. 
 

Grafton Architects from Light

 

to Dark

Kengo Kuma (Japan) used light and smell in his installation - not so effective for me as I don't have a very good sense of smell.  
 

Kengo Kuma - Light & Smell

Construction detail

Diebedo Francis Kere (Burkina Faso & Germany) brought colour to the proceedings and an active chance to participate and colour the surroundings while moving through his tunnel.  His was the most crowded part of the exhibition when I was there and the exhibit where people spent the most time as they made their contribution to the piece.  

Diebedo Francis Kere - Outside of Tunnel

Tunnel View

Add your own colour and detail

Pezo von Ellrichshausen (Chile) had constructed an interesting tower accessed via winding staircases or a ramp and from which you could peer out from spyholes at different heights.  This looked the most monumental in structure.  An unexpected benefit was that you could also see the RA's decorative features up close.
 

Pezo von Ellrichshausen - Tower

Winding staircases emerge at the top of the tower

Tower gives close up views of RA decoration

Finally my favourite was Li Xiaodong (China) who brought a sense of the outside in (wooden walls), added sound (crunching pebbles), space (mirrored wall), light (walkways lit from below) and surprising spaces and lots of texture. 

Li Xiaodong - Wooden passages lit from below

Hidden spaces

Mirrored room - adding space with a mirrored wall + sound with pebbles underfoot

 It was a great exhibition!