The Turner Prize nominees and winners came up with a predictable set of embarrassing posters for the Olympics. Apart from the perpetrators themselves, no one could be found to say a good word about their efforts. Someone needs to get a grip. First we were presented with an inept logo which had cost £400,000 for… Continue reading Olympic posters: our native genius
Category: Editorials
Hitting the bottle
The National Maritime Museum in Greenwich has bought for £362,500 the ship in a bottle by Yinka Shonibare which had sat ornamentally becalmed on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square for the previous 18 months. It is the Greenwich museum’s job to collect ships and related tackle and, lately, any sea-related nonsense deemed ‘challenging’ by… Continue reading Hitting the bottle
Hitting the right tone (or tits first)
Almost part of The Season now, the only surprise these days about the annual BP Portrait Award is that the Queen doesn’t cut the ribbon and hand out the rosettes. As ever, this year is as popular with the public as any art exhibition, with large numbers jostling and genuinely engaging with the work eagerly… Continue reading Hitting the right tone (or tits first)
Margate Express on Central Line
The latest masterpiece from the Professor of Drawing is the cover for the tube map. She does a fair warbler with its beak open and trots it out at regular intervals. “When in doubt scribble a bird with its beak open,” advised the Prof as she stepped down from the Margate Express. It was commissioned… Continue reading Margate Express on Central Line
One for the Royal Collection
It’s the headgear that does it. Gives it away completely. Without it you’d be none the wiser. But the miner’s lamp makes it beyond any doubt. This is the Professor of Drawing at work on her most important finished presentation piece yet, a celebration of the Wigan pit girls of the 19th century. Such economy… Continue reading One for the Royal Collection
Tanks on the lawn
The tanks are opening at the Tate on July 18th. These are the very same tanks that stored oil in the days when Bankside served the function of generating electricity by burning Arabia’s finest. And if the ignoramuses in the Tate’s PR department start cooing, and they will – they will – about said tanks… Continue reading Tanks on the lawn
The RA summer show in record time
Out of respect for one of its recently deceased Academicians, Leonard Rosomon (1913– 2012), the Royal Academy skied one of his best works in the corner of an obscure gallery at this year’s Summer Exhibition (until August 12th). His Committee Meeting, Royal Academy (above), 1979-1984, was on loan from the National Portrait Gallery, where it… Continue reading The RA summer show in record time
The case for a more – not less – traditional Royal Academy
First published in The Jackdaw ♯1, September 2000 …All of this is distant from the reason that the Royal Academy was set up in 1768; namely, in order to provide an Academy, a school, for the training of artists, as well as to give members and hopefuls the fixed target of an annual exhibition to… Continue reading The case for a more – not less – traditional Royal Academy
RA summer exhibition: An institution betrayed
First published in The Jackdaw ♯71 September 2007: Figurative painter Gary M James on the 2007 RA Summer Exhibition. Any outsider who entered figurative work which was not small enough to squeeze into the small south room had wasted their time, money and effort I became a Friend of the Royal Academy not long before… Continue reading RA summer exhibition: An institution betrayed
RA summer exhibition: State Art is swallowing the RA
First published in The Jackdaw ♯21, September 2002 As the cost of non-member submission has increased so the chance of inclusion has diminished owing to the reduction in available room. Seemingly unstoppable, the apparently incurable bacterium of State Art continues to spread like a plague into every corner of culture. Like the feared superbug, necrotising… Continue reading RA summer exhibition: State Art is swallowing the RA