While studying art at Uni I always gave a little shudder when I heard my tutor mentioning the idea of a salon style hang for our work. The most well-known and long established ‘salon hang’ has and always will be the Royal Academy Summer exhibition. Despite my reluctance to embrace this form of exhibiting I must admit, If anyone can do it, it’s the Royal Academy. This year’s exhibition showed off RA’s particular brilliance by inviting Michael Craig Martin to co-ordinate and direct this vibrant, cohesive and eclectic show.

The walls are filled with the famed, the infamous and the unknown of the art world. Many rooms are painted in beautifully unexpected colours, the art works are paired down and stream lined perfectly and the least likely of places, the stairway,  is covered by Jim Lambie’s radiant lines of colour. This is a colour bomb of the best of British art.

Some of my personal favourites includes Philips King’s ‘Hoorah’ installation, Anish Kapoor’s bubbling glass structure ‘Untitled’ and Frank Bowling’s beautifully rich ‘Pickerslift’ painting.

This is the world’s oldest art competition that balances the new and old, the emerging and established. For me, the stand-out was not so much the individual art but the genius of Michael Craig-Martin direction. This is 2015’s must-see exhibition.

 

Emily Bruton