“I had two goals while pottering among the 1,851 works in the 258th Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition,” said Christopher Howse in The Telegraph. First, to find “a nice little piece to buy”; second, “to identify the most annoying exhibit”. There were, alas, many more contenders for the latter than the former.
The RA’s summer show has been running every year since 1769, making it the world’s oldest open-submission exhibition. Every year, it mixes the work of famous artists with efforts by members of the public; and every piece displayed, this year as always, is for sale.
Its 2026 iteration has been “coordinated” by the conceptual artist Ryan Gander, whose chosen theme for it is “Interconnectedness”. I didn’t detect a hint of that here: it is, rather, a “whirl of objects” – an incoherent and unsatisfying display. “If you really dislike someone, then you might consider giving them ‘Speaking Clock’ by Peter Liversidge, which is just a Tannoy announcing the time each minute. It would be an expensive hate crime, though, at £7,500.”
This year’s exhibition is “less awful than usual”, said Eddy Frankel in The Guardian. Yes, of course it features “some of the worst art you’ve ever seen”. Nadirs include “a vast, half-arsed nude” by Tracey Emin; and Antony Gormley’s “giant” sculpture of his own likeness, that you’re encouraged to enter via “his backside”.
Yet Gander brings “a little bit of strangeness” to the event, which is very welcome. He gives ample space for oddball displays: “a video of a bloke doing Bowie karaoke”; a sculpture of a disembodied corpse sitting on a chair; a pair of silver boots “dumped on a plinth”.
As for buying opportunities, if I had the cash, I’d be interested in the comedian Harry Hill’s two paintings of cars on fire, which are “bleak and silly”, but strikingly so. The best things are by artists you’ve probably never heard of. Glen Pudvine’s image of hands unfolding a piece of paper, for instance, is “stunningly executed”. Harriet Porter, meanwhile, is a regular at the Summer Exhibition – and she’s always “the best thing in it”. Her painting of a “small, silver pot” is “hazy, minimal, serene”.
The summer show means “a great deal” to the non-professional artists who submit their best work, said Laura Freeman in The Times. There’s the standard deluge of cat pictures (though, curiously, there are fewer dogs than usual), but there are also some really good submissions: Sharmini Wirasekara, for instance, is exhibiting a “beaded beetle” that strikes me as “an iridescent miracle”.
Yet there are many disappointments: a Grayson Perry tapestry railing at the rise of AI doesn’t make sense in this context; and, in the RA courtyard, Ugo Rondinone’s LED rainbow sculpture spelling out the words “The Song is You” is the “tritest” work to occupy the space in years. Overall, this is “a flat and charmless year”.
Royal Academy, London W1. Until 23 August