LONDON.- Leading British artist and influential teacher, Michael Craig-Martin CBE RA, this year’s co-ordinator of the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition, has focused on a new layout of the Main Galleries, where rooms are characterised by vibrant colours. Craig-Martin also invited the Turner Prize nominated artist, Jim Lambie, to create a signature, multi-coloured installation for the RA’s main staircase leading up to the Summer Exhibition and Liam Gillick to create a site-specific work for the Central Hall.

As co-ordinator of the Summer Exhibition Craig-Martin decided to focus on a significant number of mature artists whose work he has long admired to exhibit works this year, some of whom have balanced work as artists with distinguished teaching careers. They include Vanessa Jackson (RA Schools), Stephen Buckley (University of Reading), Jon Thompson (Goldsmiths) and John Hilliard (Slade School of Fine Art), as well as Dick Smith, Keith Milow and Andrew Lord.

Further highlights of the exhibition include Humument, a monumental work by Tom Phillips RA that has been in progress since 1966. Over the past 49 years, Phillips has altered every page of a Victorian book published in 1892 entitled A Human Document by WH Matlock, transforming it by incorporating drawing, painting, collage and cut-outs to create an entirely new work.

Recently elected Honorary Academician William Kentridge has submitted nine new works on paper in the Small Weston Room, marking the first time he has exhibited work at the Summer Exhibition. Newly elected Royal Academicians including, Rose Wylie, Rebecca Salter, Eva Rothschild and Farshid Moussavi are also exhibiting works this year.

Over 1,000 artworks are on display, the majority of which are for sale offering visitors an opportunity to purchase original artwork by emerging and established artists. The Summer Exhibition is the world’s largest open submission exhibition, comprising a range of media including painting, printmaking, photography, sculpture, architecture and film. The Summer Exhibition has been held every year without interruption since 1769 and continues to play a significant part in raising funds to finance the current students of the RA Schools.

The link between the Summer Exhibition and the RA Schools is one that Michael Craig-Martin particularly values: “It is not always fully appreciated that the funds raised by the Summer Exhibition contribute towards the funding of the RA Schools which are the only graduate art school in England which does not charge tuition fees.”

The hanging committee for the Summer Exhibition includes Royal Academicians: Norman Ackroyd who has overseen the ever-popular Print Room, Olwyn Bowey, Gus Cummins, Jock McFadyen, David Remfry, Mick Rooney, Alison Wilding and Bill Woodrow, who has curated a room dedicated to sculpture. The Architecture Gallery has been curated by Ian Ritchie RA.

Annenberg Courtyard
Conrad Shawcross RA has created a new site-specific installation for the RA Courtyard for the Summer Exhibition 2015. Entitled The Dappled Light of the Sun, 2015, the large-scale, immersive work consists of a group of five steel ‘clouds’, which inhabit the courtyard’s central space. The branching forms are made up of thousands of tetrahedrons and stand at over six metres high and weigh five tonnes each.

Conrad Shawcross said, “The Greeks considered the tetrahedron to represent the very essence of matter. In this huge work I have taken this form as my ‘brick’, growing these chaotic, diverging forms that will float above the heads of visitors who will be able to wander beneath them. I am extremely excited to see the completed work exhibited for the first time in the RA’s historic Annenberg Courtyard, for which it was conceived.”