Royal West of England Academy annual open exhibition #173 review

Exhibition poster.

For three consecutive years I had work accepted by the RWA selection committee only to find that the hanging team had chosen not to display them (this is known as ‘selected; not hung’; three very cruel words).

This, coupled with the realisation that academicians gain automatic acceptance for three works and that at least one third of what is exhibited is by academicians convinced me not to submit to this ‘open, annual exhibition’ again and set me to wonder what the criteria for selection and hanging were and whether they make for a good exhibition.

I visit the show every year to better understand what art in the West of England is, where my own art fits in and how much the show demonstrates Novelty, Narrative and Nuance, and every year I’m disappointed.

I can remember my first real exposure to modern Art; as a student at Stevenson College of further education in Edinburgh, my art teacher, John Nelson took us to a show in the Royal High School curated by Richard Demarco and I can still feel the visceral excitement created by the variety of work, the experimentation in technique, the colours used, and the scale and audacity of what was on display, sadly none of that was on display this year at the RWA.

When I visiting a show, I always walk around quickly, to get an understanding the structure of the show (at RWA there are three separate rooms) and what the curator was trying to convey. I then take my time to look at every painting until I feel compelled to stop and scrutinise a work in detail before standing back to view it in the context of the wall that it is hanging on (assuming that the work is a painting) and then move on. Finally, I have another walk around. I find that this process helps cement a complete feeling of the show and its highlights, of which, this year, there were very few. 

Given that the RWA attracts submissions from a catchment of more than 6 million people, it is hard to believe that this show is representative of the best in the west (particularly when compared with other nearby shows such as Wells Contemporary and independently organised shows such as Mat Consumes show at Rockaway Park). It is easy to spot the academicians work on display; mostly tired work that would appear to have been dug up from a pile languishing in a basement and submitted due to sense of obligation. It is easy to spot what will sell; small pieces of practiced, well-crafted art depicting ‘things’ and it is easy to spot work that is part of a body of work but as a single item surrounded by a vast array of work is rendered meaningless, and this is the main problem that I have with the salon approach to exhibiting; the main spaces are far too busy with the smaller side rooms far more interesting but equally crowded.

However, the real problem that I had with this year’s show was the sudden realisation that the entire show was tonally and colour coordinated by room; no attempt to curate a show by genre, or theme, or concept or technique. The main rooms were predominantly of soft, muted and washed-out colours, one side room was where some of the work had enough presence to sit next to other equally confident work and the final was entirely of black and white work.

In very few exemptions did the work on show demonstrate the three parameters of Novelty, Narrative and Nuance; I appreciate that curating a show is difficult and that a section committee judges work on artistic merits but to then have a hanging committee hang work because it fits in with a colour/tone theme renders the work decorative ultimately devaluing everything on display.

I understand that an open exhibition is dependant of what is submitted but filling walls for the sake of having a show is lazy; I left feeling depressed and hope that the newly appointed Director and CEO of the RWA takes a moment to stand back and reassess their approach to curating this show, the automatic selection of academicians work and possibly consider employing a guest curator.

The next show is the Biennial open call with selected work to be shown in conjunction with work by  Frank Bowling. This promises to be an exciting show for which I will break my earlier decision and submit work and hope that my colours don’t clash!