Affordable Art?

Every year the Royal Academy of Arts in London holds a summer exhibition, which is always a treat to attend!

So when I travelled down to London last weekend to spend some time with a friend, do a little shopping, and soak in some culture, we decided to go and check out this year's show...

The exhibition is described as "the largest open contemporary art exhibition in the world, drawing together a wide range of new work by both established and unknown living artists. Now in its 240th year, the exhibition includes around 1,200 works and the majority of works are for sale."

So many amazing works! And it's true that many of them are for sale. Although several are relatively inexpensive for original artworks, unfortunately all are well beyond the means of my pocket. But it is fun to imagine which one I would choose if that were an option. You can see some of the pieces here, here and here.

Academician, Tracey Emin, curated one of the galleries this year and, as one might expect from her, she selected several pieces that were designed to shock (the room came with an 18+ age rating). I liked several of the works in this room actually, although I can see why some would shock certain sensibilities. I found the video of a naked woman hula-hooping quite difficult to watch. Not because she was naked but because the hoop was made of barbed wire!

My feeling was that overall this was not as strong an exhibition as I've seen in previous years (or perhaps it just didn't appeal to me as much) but there were several wonderful pieces. It's virtually impossible to choose just a single favourite and many of those I liked are of such a scale that it'd require a whole new home, with much larger walls, if I were seriously considering bringing anything home.

But, if I was going to carry just one little work back with me, one I could actually see in my home space and enjoy living with, I think it would have been this one...

By The Moon
Matthew Ablitt, Etching

Love it!