I love me a bit of autumn. In my book, summer is quite frankly overrated as is being the first to the summer exhibitions. Why jostle with all the masses when you can wait until its quietened down and you can actually see the art without having to contend with any bearded hipsters trying to take a quick selfie? I do also live in the sticks now so it was with great excitement that I made the pilgrimage down to the big smoke to see the Summer Exhibition at The Royal Academy.
There was a lot to like about the exhibition and there were some really outstanding works. There seemed to be an increased focus on paper and ink works which is always welcome. You cannot get away from money anywhere in the exhibition as those little stickers ‘sold’ stickers are everwhere. You can’t really blame them though, if I had the money I’d use it as a shopping trip too. I had my eye on a whimsical ink piece depicting the history of coffee houses in London (I can’t remember the artist’s name so any ideas in the comments, please! ) and a beautifully ethereal smoke screen print by Gavin Turk.
It did leave me a bit cold though. I do think I approached it wrong and my expectations were too high. It was the first time I’d been and I guess I looked at it as the pinnacle of contemporary British art. It didn’t surprise me and it didn’t teach me anything new about contemporary art. A lot of it just left me perplexed (the charred lump of oak in the middle of one room, particularly).
Which leads me to this.
This book has been out for a couple of months but has slipped under my radar. Going To The Museum by Miriam Elia is one of the darkest but hilarious art books you’ll ever see. It’s a bizarre mix of children’s educational book and a biting critique of conceptual art.
The jolly, colourful illustrations will enable the child to smoothly internalise all of the debilitating middle class self hatred contained in each artwork. New words on every page also help the child to identify the concepts, so that they may repeat them at dinner parties and impress educated guests.
(Via: gotothegallery.com)It is written by artist Miriam Elia and has caused Penguin Books (publidhers of the original John and Susan books) to threaten legal action due to copyright infringement. The fact that it mentions death and vaginas a lot probably didn’t help either.
It’s my birthday in a few weeks and this is definitely on my list.
Picasso and Pints 