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11/6/2007

Light

Royal Academy of Arts, London

The world's largest open submission contemporary show

The Royal Academy's annual Summer Exhibition is the world's largest open submission contemporary show, with a tradition of showcasing work by unknown and established artists, side by side. This year's co-ordinators - Bill Woodrow RA, Ian Ritchie RA and Paul Huxley RA – have selected works around this year's theme of 'Light'. Works selected for display encompass a wide range of artistic disciplines; painting, printmaking, photography, sculpture and architecture.

The Summer Exhibition traditionally attracts a very high volume of entrants, with around 13,000 works submitted this year. The majority of selected works are on sale, offering visitors an unrivalled opportunity to purchase original artwork by well known or up and coming artists. Artists exhibiting this year include Honorary Academicians Jasper Johns, Ed Ruscha and Robert Rauschenberg alongside names such as Andreas Gursky, Julian Opie and Robert Mangold.

Highlights of this year's exhibition include a gallery curated by Royal Academician and former Turner Prize winner Tony Cragg who has invited a selection of German sculptors including Katharina Fritsch, Stephen Balkenhol and Wilhelm Mundt. Also, David Hockney RA has submitted the largest painting ever shown at the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition entitled Bigger Trees Near Warter or/ou Peinture en Plein Air pour l'age Post-Photographique. Made up of a grid of 50 small canvases, the work is 40 ft wide x 15 ft high, painted in the open air, this is the largest work Hockney has ever made. Following tradition, the Summer Exhibition celebrates the work of Royal Academicians who have died over the past year. This year there are memorial displays to Kyffin Williams RA and Sandra Blow RA.

For the first time ever, a whole gallery has been dedicated to photography which includes works by leading British photographers Paul Graham, Catherine Yass and a Martin Parr collaboration with architect, John McAslan. Curated by Bill Woodrow, this gallery represents international artists Philip Lorcia di Corcia, Bert Teunissen, Edgar L, Candida Höfer and Jane & Louise Wilson. Embracing this year's theme 'light', two galleries explore the use of artificial light in art.

The growing number of photographic works in the Summer Exhibition represents a marked increase in the use of the medium by open-submission artists and offers a complete survey of photography as a medium.

To compliment the photography focus, the second gallery displays a collection of projection installations and light-boxes. Tracey Emin RA, Michael Craig-Martin RA and Chris Levine all embrace the theme. Film works include a piece by Bill Viola, Passage into Night and Tim Noble and Sue Webster who use light and shadow in their work 'Metal Fucking Rats' . The atmosphere of the gallery is enhanced further by Tony Oursler's Mugs, Charles Sandison's Genoma and Joana Pires Da Mota, Birds and Metronome works which use sound within their projection. Following on from last year's successful series, the BBC are making three one-hour programmes about the Summer Exhibition, to be screened on BBC TWO on 22, 23 and 24 June. Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen will once again take the helm of the BBC's coverage.

Memorial artists

Kyffin Williams RA (1918 – 2006)
Kyffin Williams studied at the Slade School and went on to become the Senior Art Master at Highgate School. In 1968 he was awarded the Winston Churchill Fellowship, to record the Welsh in Patagonia. Williams exhibited at the Thackeray Gallery in London, biennially from 1975 and also exhibited regularly at the Albany Gallery, Cardiff. A retrospective of his work was held in 1987 at the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, which subsequently toured. A portraits retrospective was held at Oriel Ynys Mon, Llangefni in 1993. Williams was President of the Royal Cambrian Academy twice, from 1969 and again from 1992. He was made an Honorary Fellow of University College, Swansea (1989), University College, Bangor (1991) and University College of Wales, Aberystwyth (1992). In 1991 he received the Medal of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion. Kyffin Williams lived and worked in Gwynedd, Wales.

Sandra Blow RA (1925 – 2006)
Sandra Blow studied at St Martin's, the Royal Academy Schools and the Academy of Fine Arts, Rome. She went on to teach at the Royal College of Art from 1960. Blow's career saw solo shows, with a retrospective of her work held at the Royal Academy in 1994. Blow also participated in many international group exhibitions from an early stage in her career, including 'St Ives' held at the Tate Gallery in 1985. Blow's awards include joint-winner of the International Guggenheim Award in 1960 and Second Prize Winner in the John Moores Liverpool Exhibition in 1961. In 1994 her work 'Green and White' was purchased for the Nation. Among her recent commissions are a glass screen for Heathrow Airport (commissioned by the BAA in 1995), and illustrations for 'Waves on Porthmeor Beach', by Alaric Sumner (Wordsworth Books, 1995). Sandra Blow was appointed Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Art in 1973 and Honorary Fellow of the London Institute in 2003. She lived and worked in Cornwall.

Annenberg Courtyard

Jake and Dinos Chapman have created three corten-steel dinosaurs measuring over 8 metres in length and towering 4-7 metres high for the Royal Academy Annenberg Courtyard. This work entitled The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth, but not the Mineral Rights is the first time that the Chapmans have created a large-scale outdoor sculpture. The work is the latest installation in the RA's programme of Sculpture in the Courtyard, and follows on from Anselm Kiefer's Jericho, Rodin's Gates of Hell and Damien Hirst's Virgin Mother.

Prizes

Each year, the Summer Exhibition presents a series of awards totalling £70,000 of prize money for artists of exceptional merit. Each prize is donated by commercial and industrial sponsors as well as by generous individuals including Insight Investment, The Architects' Journal and Jack Goldhill. Established in 1978, the RA Charles Wollaston Award is, at £25,000, one of the largest and most prestigious art prizes in Britain. Previous winners include Jake and Dinos Chapman (2003), Alan Charlton (2002), Marc Quinn (2001), Gerard Hemsworth (2000), David Hockney (1999), John Hoyland (1998) and R. B. Kitaj (1997).

Selection and Hanging Committee

The Selection and Hanging Committee for 2007 consists of Royal Academicians Norman Ackroyd, Ben Levene, Barbara Rae, David Mach, Ian Ritchie, Anthony Green, Tony Cragg, Paul Huxley, Gordon Benson, Frank Bowling, Nigel Hall and Chris Wilkinson. The President of the Royal Academy, Sir Nicholas Grimshaw, chaired the Committee.

For press information:
Susie Pickering
Tel.020 7300 8041
Fax 020 7300 8032
email :press.office@royalacademy.org.uk

Royal Academy of Arts
Burlington House Piccadilly - Lomdon
Hours: Saturday - Thursday 10am - 6pm, Friday 10am - 10pm
Admission: £7 full price; £6 Registered Disabled and 60 + years; £5 NUS / ISIC cardholders; £3 12-18 years and Income Support; £2 8-11 years; 7 and under free; £16 family ticket (2 adults & up to 2 family children 8 - 18 years)

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