This was due to be a one word review (we'll let you make your own mind up on what that word may have been....), however that would be somewhat disrespectful to the many hundreds of amateur (for want of a slightly less degrading word.... prehaps 'part-time'?) artists that took the bold step to queue for hours with their artwork, releasing it from the comfort of their own front room and into the razor tongued arena of the art world, only for the usually prehistoric RA selection committee to decide (who knows how.... ip dip doo maybe?) that some are more worthy to be hung on the grand old walls then others. So we're going to make it slightly longer, just slightly mind....
You see, the problem is that the art just isn't very inspiring. And you should probably replace the word 'very' with 'at all'. Now we'd like to say that it could have had something to do with us just being caught in one of Londons random tropical style downpours as we made our way to the exhibition (in summerwear no less), or the fact that it's a whopping £10 pp entry fee to view the works, that led us to this view, but try as we might, we're far too honest to give that excuse.
It's not even the lack of a theme, or the incredibly packed walls with no seeming direction to they way they've been hung, indeed we knew it would be like that. It's just that, well, the art is poor. We feel a bit bad saying it. Don't get us wrong, there's definitely a lot of technically gifted artwork on display, lots of nicely painted figures, some lovely etchings and photographs..... but that's kind of it. There's nothing that reaches out and grabs you, erring you to stand and stare at it in wonder. There's nothing you feel, well, jealous that you didn't produce or think of it first. Every time you think you might have seen something with a bit of potential, you enthusiastically grab your little book of artists names and find that it is, unfortunately, by someone who is already respected and established. Gutted. And we won't even go into how much some of these pieces are on sale for, it's like the artists have just plucked a figure out of thin air (up to £150,000....... seriously?!).
We won't go on for too much longer. You know how we feel already. Just to say that we know there's great art out there that hasn't yet been discovered, it's just that until the RA change their archaic view on art, you just aren't going to find it at their summer exhibition.
We'll no doubt enter next year though..... because we're artists, and this is what we do.
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