This year\u2019s RA Summer Exhibition is less awful than usual. It\u2019s still full of some of the worst art you\u2019ve ever seen \u2013 way too many Michael Craig-Martins and Bob and Roberta Smiths \u2013 but its awfulness is definitely a bit less awful.<\/p>\n
This relative less-awfulness is partly thanks to Ryan Gander, the conceptual artist who is the coordinator of this year\u2019s exhibition. He\u2019s brought a little bit of strangeness to this stuffy old show, a bit of weird discomfort to the world\u2019s oldest open submission exhibition, where amateurs get to have their tiny drawing of a flower totally eclipsed by a massive Tracey Emin<\/a> nude. What a privilege.<\/p>\n He\u2019s brought a bit of strangeness to this stuffy old show \u2026 curator Ryan Gander. Photograph: Tolga Akmen\/EPA<\/p>\n Off in the Small Weston Room, the cupboard space off the main galleries usually reserved for video work, Gander\u2019s built an odd little living room. A video of a bloke doing Bowie karaoke blares into the room, a disembodied corpse sits on a chair, a pair of silver boots have been dumped on a plinth. None of the work is great, but at least it\u2019s a change from the usual tidal wave of paintings of gardens.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t worry though, Summer Exhibition fans, there\u2019s still plenty of that about: the opening gallery, selected by printmaker Katherine Jones, is an explosion of still lifes and landscapes, absolutely loads of them. Are any of them good? Hard to say, you almost immediately go Summer Exhibition-blind, overwhelmed by the floor to ceiling coverage of endless figuration.<\/p>\n The rest of the show is calmer and more restrained, which is a relief. The room selected by Humphrey Ocean<\/a> is colourful and fun, Goshka Macuga<\/a>\u2019s is sombre and serene and the first of the three Eileen Cooper<\/a> rooms is the best hang I\u2019ve seen at the Summer Exhibition for years.<\/p>\n But who cares about the curation? Once you\u2019re packed in here with thousands of other punters you\u2019ll barely be able to see the art, let alone notice any themes. Because this isn\u2019t an art experience, it\u2019s a buying opportunity. It\u2019s all for sale, even to schlubs like me or you. And there\u2019s plenty here I\u2019d take home if I had any money.<\/p>\n For a start, there are two paintings of cars on fire by Harry Hill \u2013 yes that Harry Hill \u2013 which are both bleak and silly. A Louis Loveless<\/a> painting of a drone\u2019s eye-view of a pickup truck captured in the moments just before an attack plays on similarly bleak, but much less fun, ideas of vehicular destruction.<\/p>\n The best hang I\u2019ve seen at the Summer Exhibition for years \u2026 room curated by Eileen Cooper. Photograph: Ben Stansall\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Of the hundreds of portraits here, David Gamble\u2019s thick, gloopy, gross self-portrait is my favourite. Of the hundreds of cat paintings, Jill Feld\u2019s manic, panicked little black kitty is the weirdest and most arresting. Of the multiple paintings of brutalist buildings, Peter Wylie\u2019s image of Alexander Fleming House is the best. Gray Wielebinski\u2019s ink drawing of a terrifying screaming head with fangs and four mouths will haunt my dreams, as will Alison Friend\u2019s portrait of a poodle cradling a portrait of another poodle.<\/p>\n But for pure painterly excellence, you won\u2019t get much better than Glen Pudvine<\/a> and Harriet Porter<\/a>. The former\u2019s image of two hands unfolding a piece of paper is stunningly executed. The latter\u2019s painting of a small, silver pot is beautiful, hazy, minimal, serene. She\u2019s an artist I\u2019ve only ever seen at the Summer Exhibition, and every year she\u2019s the best thing in it.<\/p>\n A lot of this is about what your eye is naturally drawn to. But some things here are also objectively rubbish. Tracey Emin contributes a vast, half-arsed nude. There\u2019s also a giant Antony Gormley<\/a> structure \u2013 a model of the artist himself crouching on the floor that you\u2019re encouraged to enter from what I can only imagine is meant to be his backside. Worst of all, I counted at least two works by Sean Scully, the modern master of tossed off, ugly abstraction.<\/p>\n But look, it\u2019s the Summer Exhibition. It\u2019s an anachronistic exercise in cramming as much art and as many viewers into a space as possible. A mix of the awful and less awful is exactly what you\u2019d expect.<\/p>\n