London Calling.
London Walks connecting.
This is London.
This is London Walks.
Streets Ahead.
Story time.
History time.
The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition opened yesterday. June 16th.
Which is another way of saying that summer has arrived in London.
Not officially.
Not astronomically.
Not according to the Met Office.
London has its own calendar.
And on that calendar there are certain unmistakable signs.
Wimbledon.
Ascot.
Cricket at Lord’s.
Henley.
The deckchairs appearing in Green Park and St James’s Park.
The first long evening when people are still sitting outside pubs at ten o’clock.
And the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition.
When the doors open on the Summer Exhibition, London knows what season it is.
“The sculpture was rejected.
The plinth was accepted.”
If ever there was a sentence that captured the spirit of the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, that’s it.
An artist submitted a sculpture.
And the plinth it stood on.
The two were judged separately.
The sculpture didn’t make the cut.
The plinth did.
Only at the Summer Exhibition.
Only in London.
And only at an exhibition that has spent more than two and a half centuries celebrating genius, eccentricity, ambition, disappointment, hope, bafflement and occasional outright absurdity.
The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition is one of London’s great annual rituals.
It’s also one of the oldest.
The first one took place in 1769, a year after the Royal Academy itself was founded.
George III was on the throne.
James Cook was preparing for his first great voyage.
Samuel Johnson was stalking the streets of London.
And artists were already bringing their work to Burlington House hoping to catch the eye of critics, collectors and patrons.
Remarkably, the exhibition has been held every single year since.
Wars.
Depressions.
Political crises.
Pandemics.
The Summer Exhibition has simply carried on.
This year’s show runs until 23rd August.
And it’s enormous.
More than fifteen hundred works fill the galleries.
Paintings.
Prints.
Drawings.
Sculpture.
Photography.
Architecture.
Works that stop you in your tracks.
Works that make you smile.
Works that leave you scratching your head.
And occasionally works that make you wonder whether somebody is having you on.
Which is part of the fun.
The Summer Exhibition isn’t a museum.
It’s a conversation.
Sometimes an argument.
Sometimes a glorious row.
Now here’s the remarkable thing.
Anybody can enter.
You don’t need a gallery.
You don’t need an art-school diploma.
You don’t need influential friends.
You don’t need to be famous.
The Academy invites submissions from professionals, amateurs, students and complete unknowns.
Everybody takes their chances.
This year entries were capped at eighteen thousand works.
Think about that for a moment.
Eighteen thousand hopes.
Eighteen thousand ambitions.
Eighteen thousand people wondering whether this might be their year.
Only a fraction make it onto the walls.
Which means that getting accepted is an achievement in itself.
One artist finally made it into the exhibition a couple of years ago.
On her thirty-first attempt.
Thirty-one years.
Thirty-one rejections.
Thirty-one years of refusing to give up.
There’s something rather admirable about that.
The whole thing is curated by artists.
This year’s coordinator is Ryan Gander.
His chosen theme is “Interconnectedness”.
The idea that apparently unrelated things are often connected in surprising ways.
Which feels very London somehow.
A city where Roman walls sit beneath office blocks.
A city where Charles Dickens and David Bowie can end up in the same conversation.
A city where a medieval church can find itself in the shadow of a glass skyscraper.
The Summer Exhibition reflects that same spirit.
Unexpected encounters.
Unexpected connections.
Unexpected discoveries.
And then there are the orange stickers.
The famous orange stickers.
People who know the Summer Exhibition always keep an eye out for them.
They mean a work has sold.
Visitors become sticker hunters.
They move from room to room counting them.
“Look at that one.”
“Sold.”
“That one too.”
“Sold.”
“Good heavens, half this wall’s gone.”
By the latter stages of the exhibition those little orange stickers can become a spectacle in their own right.
A visible reminder that this isn’t simply an exhibition.
It’s a marketplace.
A place where careers can be launched.
A place where unknown artists can suddenly find themselves in demand.
The exhibition has a long history of producing stories like that.
And what stories.
J. M. W. Turner exhibited here.
John Constable exhibited here.
John Singer Sargent exhibited here.
David Hockney.
Tracey Emin.
Generations of artists have passed through these galleries.
Some arrived famous.
Some left famous.
Some arrived famous and left unfamous after critics got hold of them.
The Summer Exhibition has never lacked for drama.
Nor for eccentricity.
Early reports from this year’s show suggest visitors should keep an eye out for works by comedian Harry Hill.
Yes, that Harry Hill.
There is apparently a painting of a poodle holding a portrait of another poodle.
Which somehow feels entirely appropriate.
The exhibition has always had room for the sublime and the ridiculous.
Often hanging side by side.
Perhaps the best way to approach it is not to approach it at all.
Don’t try to see everything.
You can’t.
Nobody can.
The exhibition is too big.
Too rich.
Too crowded.
Too overwhelming.
Instead, wander.
Browse.
Get lost.
Turn a corner.
See what happens.
That’s the secret.
The Summer Exhibition rewards curiosity.
Just like London does.
Which brings me to a suggestion.
Because Burlington House sits right in the heart of Piccadilly.
Spend a morning at the Summer Exhibition.
Count the orange stickers.
Discover your favourite unknown artist.
And reflect that this is an exhibition with such a long history of glorious eccentricity that it once accepted a plinth while rejecting the sculpture standing on it.
Then step outside into the summer sunshine.
And join London Walks’ A Village in Piccadilly.
It’s one of those walks that reveals a hidden London most people never notice.
A village concealed inside one of the busiest and grandest districts in the capital.
The pairing feels exactly right.
The Summer Exhibition is a cabinet of artistic curiosities.
A Village in Piccadilly is a cabinet of London curiosities.
Both are full of surprises.
Both reward wandering.
Both remind us that the best discoveries are often the ones we weren’t looking for.
And both are as London as strawberries at Wimbledon, a summer afternoon at Lord’s, a flutter at Ascot, or a deckchair in St James’s Park.
Summer has pitched up in London.
The Royal Academy has weighed anchor.
And that, as every Londoner knows, is one of the surest signs of all.
See ya tomorrow.