LONDON.- Jane and Louise Wilson RA will co-ordinate the 252nd Summer Exhibition in 2020, the first time it will be curated by an artistic duo. The Summer Exhibition Committee members are Royal Academicians Sonia Boyce, Eileen Cooper, Richard Deacon, Stephen Farthing and Isaac Julien. David Adjaye will curate the Architecture Gallery. The committee will be chaired by the new President of the Royal Academy, Rebecca Salter.

Jane and Louise Wilson said: “We’re very excited to be co-ordinating this year’s Summer Exhibition alongside fellow RAs. The Summer Exhibition is one of the very rare occasions where exhibition entry is open to the entire public and we want to encourage all kinds of practitioners working in all media to submit alongside art students, art teachers, self-employed artists and Academicians. A group exhibition on this scale can represent an untold multiple; it invites us to think about ratios and relations. But more specifically it can challenge the definition of what community is, and what forms collective communities can begin to look like. Particular themes this year will reflect upon identity, immigration, contested borders, ecological threat, climate change, pro-democracy protest, landscape, installation, painting, film, digital, photography and sculpture. The work in this exhibition will accommodate all disciplines contrasting visual languages and media together.’’

The Summer Exhibition is the world’s largest open submission contemporary art show which has taken place every year without interruption since 1769. The members of the Summer Exhibition Committee serve in rotation, ensuring that every year the exhibition has a distinctive character, with each Royal Academician responsible for a particular gallery space. Works from all over the world are judged democratically on merit and the final selection is made during the eight-day hang within the galleries.

The Royal Academy now invites artists and architects to take part and submit their work for a chance for it to feature in the 252nd Summer Exhibition: summer.royalacademy.org.uk. Entries will open on Monday 6 January and the submission deadline is Monday 17 February 2020. The RA expects to receive up to 15,000 entries. Around 1200 works, in a range of media, will go on display from June 2020, the majority of which will be for sale offering visitors an opportunity to purchase original work. Funds raised continue to contribute to finance the postgraduate students studying at the RA Schools.

Abdallah Nauphal, Chief Executive Officer, Insight Investment said: “Our association with the Summer Exhibition has continued now for more than a decade and we always look forward to it with anticipation as one of the most colourful and inspiring cultural highlights of the year. As the world’s largest openentry competition, it creates an excellent forum for artists from all walks of life to exhibit their work on an international stage. The exhibition celebrates creativity and can be both challenging and subversive, attracting exciting work from new and established artists alike. We hope everyone will have a chance to share in this experience.”