:00:20. > :00:24.17 and I read about it for years when I was younger and always wanted
:00:24. > :00:34.to be a part of it. When I first entered the Summer
:00:34. > :00:37.
:00:37. > :00:45.Exhibition, my eldest son was about four and now he is in his 40s!
:00:45. > :00:52.He is six foot four and I am for four foot five!
:00:52. > :01:01.-- four foot five. It is one of our real institutions, established for a
:01:01. > :01:07.long time. A really prestigious place. So entering the competition
:01:08. > :01:12.is slightly daunting because I have only just really started.
:01:12. > :01:17.I am quite prolific so I am making, making, making, and I was here last
:01:17. > :01:19.night until the early hours. I contacted my friend and she said, go
:01:19. > :01:25.to bed, I said, I need to do a bit more!
:01:25. > :01:33.Here we go again! I cannot find the end!
:01:34. > :01:36.I read somewhere that they have 13,000 entries. Carroll made me this
:01:36. > :01:41.bag, it is the perfect size. Good luck.
:01:41. > :01:46.Thank you. I feel really nervous but also quite
:01:46. > :01:55.excited. It could mean a new phase in my life.
:01:55. > :02:00.It is the top one, if you get in, I think you have got it made!
:02:00. > :02:10.If I got in this year, it would be fantastic. I will enter and see what
:02:10. > :02:19.
:02:19. > :02:25.Exhibition, the largest open art exhibition anywhere in the world and
:02:25. > :02:30.I have, many times, have visited and reviewed and even entered work. What
:02:30. > :02:36.I always think when I see people submitting work is, why do they do
:02:36. > :02:43.it and why do we do it, where does this compulsion to create, from?
:02:43. > :02:53.--, from. I remember when my husband was buried, I was sitting in bed
:02:53. > :02:53.
:02:53. > :03:03.until two a.m. Doing a watercolour. And I could forget all that was
:03:03. > :03:03.
:03:03. > :03:06.going on. You lose yourself in it. If you love what you do so much
:03:06. > :03:12.committee will it wherever you are, even if you are living in a
:03:12. > :03:16.cardboard box. But if you are a pain to or a sculptor or a poet or a
:03:16. > :03:19.writer, you will make sure you do that. If you are dedicated and you
:03:19. > :03:23.are going to be an artist coming you will do it.
:03:23. > :03:27.My husband has always been very supportive. I was ill for a long
:03:27. > :03:33.time and had one treatment and at the end of it, he said to me, I
:03:33. > :03:40.should do what I love. After everything I had been through.
:03:40. > :03:50.I have been shortlisted ten times and last year, I actually got in.
:03:50. > :04:05.
:04:05. > :04:10.One of the judges is one of my icons. Norman Ackroyd. And he is a
:04:10. > :04:20.printmaker, and his work is fantastic. It is exciting to think
:04:20. > :04:23.
:04:23. > :04:31.of Norman Ackroyd seeing my work. It This is an extraordinary exhibition
:04:31. > :04:36.where we attempt to open it up to the entire country and abroad. They
:04:36. > :04:44.can submit before us. They will be judged by their fellow artist, not
:04:44. > :04:54.before art historians and curators. And that is pretty unique.
:04:54. > :05:01.
:05:01. > :05:06.judges being artists and critics. The fact that anybody can enter,
:05:06. > :05:14.everybody is on an equal footing. I like to keep those to -- I would
:05:14. > :05:23.like to keep those two back. It is quite, no, no, maybe.
:05:23. > :05:30.We are going to look at a total of possibly ten, -10,000, 11,000.
:05:30. > :05:33.You sometimes when you have not chosen one for a while, think, my
:05:33. > :05:37.eyes getting jaded? Then suddenly something good hit you and you
:05:37. > :05:41.realise the good thing will still hit you. And you will be able to
:05:41. > :05:45.keep it back. That is well painted.
:05:45. > :05:49.You are just not quite sure exactly what they are looking for!
:05:49. > :05:53.You cannot please everybody so I think you should stick to what you
:05:53. > :05:59.know and believe in. It has to be genuine. And say the
:06:00. > :06:07.truth. That is good art. It is like John Keats and owed to it
:06:07. > :06:15.Grecian urn. Duty is truth and truth beauty. -- Ode To A Grecian Urn. --
:06:15. > :06:21.beauty is truth. There is nothing MORI can do.
:06:21. > :06:31.It is in the hands of the judges. -- there is nothing MORI can do.
:06:31. > :06:54.
:06:55. > :06:58.-- and MORI can do. very personal thing. All careers in
:06:58. > :07:03.the art world depend to some extent on the vagaries of taste and
:07:03. > :07:07.judgement of others, but it -- but it is especially true of the
:07:07. > :07:11.thousands who submit work here every year. And in the vaults beneath the
:07:11. > :07:15.Royal Academy, there are 1,000 works of art which made it through the
:07:15. > :07:20.first round of judging. And today, I will look through them with a top
:07:20. > :07:25.commercial art dealer and I am careers to find out what she makes
:07:26. > :07:28.of it. -- curious. Kate, come in here and
:07:28. > :07:32.come to the vaults of the Royal Academy.
:07:32. > :07:37.The vaults of the Royal Academy, what a privilege!
:07:37. > :07:40.It took the judges five days to choose the shortlisted 1,000, but
:07:41. > :07:46.only half of this lot will make it onto the wars!
:07:46. > :07:48.I think it would be quite good if we try and select if you works we think
:07:48. > :07:53.will make it in. It is not competitive.
:07:53. > :07:58.Maybe it is! It could be slightly. At we have to
:07:58. > :08:03.wear these gloves. And I think we are allowed to rummage around and
:08:03. > :08:07.see what we can find. I will go around here. I think there is some
:08:07. > :08:11.fertile territory this way. I will head over here.
:08:12. > :08:15.John is my art handler for the day. You have a colleague who will look
:08:15. > :08:20.after Kate. We will start here and work
:08:20. > :08:24.through. How do you approach this genuinely when you see works of art
:08:24. > :08:28.you have never encountered before? You can give them a couple of
:08:28. > :08:33.seconds and no if you will engage with them. So it is a gut feeling?
:08:33. > :08:38.Think it is. Pasted interesting because it feels conscious and
:08:38. > :08:43.refined and that you learn it. -- taste is. Which you are saying it is
:08:43. > :08:48.the opposite. I think you can combine the two but it will always
:08:48. > :08:52.be highly personal to me. In some ways, I think I have lost my
:08:52. > :09:02.personal taste and it is hard to choose art I want to buy for myself,
:09:02. > :09:12.
:09:12. > :09:21.That is quite interesting. It is origami. Don't look at my! It is
:09:21. > :09:26.cheating. -- mine. Go back, there was a drawing unfinished and it has
:09:26. > :09:30.stayed with me. What you would potentially see in the exhibition is
:09:30. > :09:34.not necessarily the cutting edge of the London art scene, but that is
:09:34. > :09:38.really refreshing because we think we are these big taste makers and
:09:38. > :09:43.everything we show in our galleries is the be all and end all and we are
:09:44. > :09:48.probably speaking to a much smaller audience than this show. Probably
:09:49. > :09:55.200,000 people see the summer show, it is non-elitist.
:09:55. > :10:05.I like that. This stack, for me, is Aaron, let's find another.
:10:05. > :10:06.
:10:07. > :10:10.I will, over there in a minute. -- is barren.
:10:10. > :10:15.This is your selection. There is something quite insistent about what
:10:15. > :10:21.you have chosen. Those two definitely work together.
:10:21. > :10:24.-- consistent. A photograph very quickly becomes the style trick, it
:10:24. > :10:34.is difficult for a photograph to live in the moment and it dates
:10:34. > :10:39.really quickly. -- idealistic. When you look back at an old photograph,
:10:39. > :10:42.they were probably just as colourful than as we are now. This has a
:10:42. > :10:45.fairly autobiographical connotation because there is nothing I love more
:10:45. > :10:52.than art history. You have Guernica, Hokusai's Wave, Rafael,
:10:52. > :10:57.Lichtenstein. Of all, it is probably the one I would not sell in my
:10:57. > :11:02.gallery but if I saw it and I could afford it, I would have to buy it.
:11:02. > :11:07.That is interesting, different levels of taste. Oscar Wilde said,
:11:07. > :11:12.all criticism is a form of autobiography, and I have not shown
:11:12. > :11:15.you mine yet but it is exposing when you pick things and say, this is
:11:15. > :11:19.what I have chosen. Particularly when we have two
:11:19. > :11:26.references to fake blonde hair. Getting a bit worried about my
:11:26. > :11:29.taste! I have picked things that I think
:11:29. > :11:36.quite pleasing and satisfying images that you could have at home, that
:11:36. > :11:39.you might have in a small intimate, domestic setting. If this gets in,
:11:39. > :11:43.we could be wandering around and there will be a moment of stillness
:11:43. > :11:49.and quietness and a space for technical brilliance within the show
:11:49. > :11:54.that was the thinking. Walthamstow Marshes, which is somewhere I cycled
:11:54. > :11:58.through a lot, so a personal connection. And although it is in
:11:58. > :12:03.monochrome again, it is technically very good. This is pretty safe and
:12:03. > :12:07.was pleasing. This, I just picked on in cheek, not
:12:07. > :12:14.because it is just a bunch of statues of naked women -- Tong in
:12:14. > :12:19.cheek. I liked the idea it is puncturing the pretension of looking
:12:19. > :12:23.at art and pontificating about something. But my favourite piece of
:12:23. > :12:26.all is this big photograph. There is nobody in it but it is clearly a
:12:26. > :12:34.self-portrait and it feels full of identity and personality, even down
:12:34. > :12:37.to finishing a Coffey... That coffee is still warm. As a journalist,
:12:37. > :12:42.which would these are -- which of these artists would you want to know
:12:42. > :12:46.more about? This is complicated and a what is happening, you want to
:12:46. > :12:51.find out about the person who created it, there is a creative
:12:51. > :12:57.intelligence behind it. We have had a sense of these able
:12:57. > :13:02.who created these works, I feel quite confident about two, three of
:13:02. > :13:07.my pics. You are quite confident? hope I see some of them. The next
:13:07. > :13:12.stage is from tomorrow, all the work selected will be put in the gallery
:13:12. > :13:16.and somebody starts to hang them and then of course you have much more
:13:16. > :13:26.complicated processes of how they bounce off against each other.
:13:26. > :13:31.
:13:31. > :13:41.whole new set of rules. Handing a letters of notification are going
:13:41. > :13:45.
:13:45. > :13:51.out. My husband told me to practice my faces, but I haven't! Aah, they
:13:51. > :13:56.haven't been chosen. So, that is sad. I feel really disappointed,
:13:56. > :13:59.but, on the other hand, I know a lot of people entered, and it's not
:13:59. > :14:09.going to stop me entering in the future. I think my work is good
:14:09. > :14:11.
:14:11. > :14:17.enough to be shown there. I've got so used to getting the old reject.
:14:18. > :14:23.Ooh! "I'm pleased to inform you that the selection committee is still
:14:23. > :14:33.considering your works." Well, that's made my day. Oh, that really
:14:33. > :14:36.
:14:36. > :14:41.has. They're still considering my work! Yes! OK, cool. Woo! Amalia, my
:14:41. > :14:45.mum needs a hug because my work wasn't selected. So I feel sad about
:14:45. > :14:55.that. OK, I will give you a hug. I have to go upstairs and do homework
:14:55. > :15:04.
:15:04. > :15:10.the shortlisted works are in the galleries, the serious business of
:15:10. > :15:16.the hang is underway. Is that the way up, is it? It's all done under
:15:16. > :15:24.the watchful eyes of this year's co-ordinators, Norman Ackroyd and
:15:24. > :15:27.Eva Jiricna. Their job is to hang an exhibition, not just of members of
:15:27. > :15:32.the public, but of famous artists too. That is the great thing about
:15:32. > :15:39.the summer show. I remember Jasper Johns giving me an absolutely
:15:39. > :15:43.beautiful mass massive etching. I just chose about a dozen really
:15:43. > :15:49.beautiful student works and hung them around the Johns. It was a,
:15:49. > :15:52.kind of, shrine, you know? You can do that in the Summer Exhibition.
:15:52. > :15:57.What an amazing validation, particularly when you are
:15:57. > :16:01.potentially in the next room next to Anthony Caro. How brilliant. I mean
:16:01. > :16:09.I would love it if they hung the pictures with no labels. Emphasise
:16:09. > :16:12.the fact that it is a completely mixed occasion. Norman and evil ya
:16:12. > :16:16.might be judges this year, but back in the day they submitted
:16:16. > :16:21.themselves. If you want to be an artist, that is what you do.
:16:21. > :16:24.submitted by drawings in 1973. I think that was. So they were hung on
:16:24. > :16:28.this wall. I never expected that anybody would select my little
:16:28. > :16:33.drawings. You know, it was just an absolutely fantastic event in my
:16:33. > :16:37.little life. Before I was an Academician I used to submit for the
:16:37. > :16:42.summer show. Most years I was accepted and hung. A couple of years
:16:42. > :16:47.I was rejected and not hung. I was disappointed. In order to make it a
:16:47. > :16:56.little bit sweeter, we always open a bot of champagne when we lose the
:16:56. > :17:01.competition and then we cheer up and think, OK, so when is the next one?
:17:01. > :17:06.You've got to be tough as old boots as an artist especially if you get
:17:06. > :17:12.past the age of 40. There's the old quote - that everybody is a poet at
:17:12. > :17:17.18. You know to be a poet at 40 is to be a poet. If you can survive
:17:17. > :17:25.right up to the age of 40 and you are still working then, you are
:17:25. > :17:34.probably going to carry on doing it for the next 30, 4 o 0 years.
:17:34. > :17:39.years. Nice, nice. I will do that now. One artist showing this year
:17:39. > :17:42.found fame late in life. Like international artists invited to the
:17:42. > :17:52.Summer Exhibition in the past, El Anatsui is installing his work in
:17:52. > :17:54.
:17:54. > :17:58.the courtyard. Hi, El. Hello, good to see you. This is looking
:17:58. > :18:03.spectacular. It's actually a work that I hadn't seen face-to-face
:18:03. > :18:10.because I worked on it all on the ground. So it is my first time of
:18:10. > :18:14.actually seeing it. What is it made of? Bits of metal? Yeah. It's made
:18:14. > :18:23.of liquor bottle caps. You know, I cut and flattened out and joined
:18:23. > :18:28.together into the sheet. His massive works have been hung in Berlin,
:18:28. > :18:33.Venice and New York this is one of the biggest of the lot. It's made by
:18:33. > :18:42.a huge team of workers in Nigeria stitching together a �250,000 bottle
:18:42. > :18:48.tops. I fwound them in a bag that was thrown in a bush. I knew because
:18:48. > :18:53.I crushed them and they were soft and you could crumple and all those
:18:53. > :18:58.things that was something that could be developed in into an expressive
:18:58. > :19:02.material. Stumbling across treasure. Yeah. He found fame with great
:19:02. > :19:12.shimmering cloths at the age of 70. He is proof positive that
:19:12. > :19:47.
:19:47. > :19:53.after hours. You think about all the artists, living and dead, who have
:19:53. > :19:56.come and gone over the years. Perhaps that's why anyone makes art
:19:56. > :20:03.in the first place, to be remembered, to leave your mark on
:20:03. > :20:06.the world. Norman, it's quite a pleasure being here out of hours,
:20:06. > :20:12.when there is no-one around? Beautifully quiet in here. Nobody
:20:12. > :20:17.bothers you. It's wonderful. When I came round the corner I found you
:20:17. > :20:21.contemplating these. These are paintings by Mary Fedden? When Mary
:20:21. > :20:25.died last year we put a memorial group together and I volunteered to
:20:25. > :20:29.put Mary's group together because she was a very dear friend. I have
:20:29. > :20:35.known her for 50 years. I thought this should be in this big gallery.
:20:35. > :20:39.I wanted to put them in my gallery. When I think Mary Fedden I think of
:20:39. > :20:44.pictures that look look more like the upper two, a still life, a lot
:20:44. > :20:47.of colour, a flattened sense of the picture plane. Tlt isn't a sense of
:20:47. > :20:50.tremendous depth. She is deliberately flattening things out.
:20:50. > :20:54.This isn't a still life at the bottom. That does have enormous
:20:54. > :20:58.depth in it, in terms of landscape, going through the graveyard with
:20:58. > :21:07.cows. You want to go in and round the corner. There is some light
:21:07. > :21:13.coming in. It's a mysterious picture. I've always thought that
:21:14. > :21:18.artist must have one eye all the time on posterty. I mean we are
:21:18. > :21:22.looking at a picture in which there is a graveyard, there a's a sense of
:21:22. > :21:28.pronounced sense of mortality. Are you thinking of what happens next?
:21:28. > :21:33.Nt aren't we all? It's a bid for immortality, as well? I have
:21:33. > :21:40.pictures by dead artists on my wall. I suppose it's immortality. I look
:21:40. > :21:46.at Samuel Palmer in the morning. You know. ?It gives me great joy,
:21:46. > :21:51.virtually every day. I suppose it's immortality. Maybe my etchis will
:21:51. > :22:01.give other people that joy. I suppose it's immortality, yes, I
:22:01. > :22:02.
:22:02. > :22:06.concede -- etchings. I don't mean it's an egotistical thing but I
:22:06. > :22:11.always imagined you know as a successful artist you must think and
:22:11. > :22:16.hope that it's what will happen to your work. I hope my work, I hope my
:22:16. > :22:24.work survives. And that some people are carrying on looking tat in 100
:22:24. > :22:29.years' time and think that's not the at all bad. There are certain
:22:29. > :22:34.subjects which are going to encourage immortality within art?
:22:35. > :22:39.The human face will always be a subject to the Uffizi, there's two
:22:39. > :22:43.Rembrandt paintings about the size, one of him when he's a young Jack
:22:43. > :22:47.the lad and one of him about a year before he died. They are just
:22:47. > :22:51.sitting there. There's Rembrandt's life and the way he could look at
:22:51. > :23:00.himself and was in touch with his own mortality and all that kind of
:23:00. > :23:04.things. Well that's what Rembrandt's about. There's a paradox there. He's
:23:04. > :23:09.painting his own mortality and in doing that he's achieved
:23:09. > :23:13.immortality. That's art.In two weeks before the Summer Exhibition
:23:13. > :23:17.opens, the galleries are almost finished and the last paintings are
:23:17. > :23:23.being hung. The second and final letters of notification are going
:23:23. > :23:29.out and the wait is almost over. Didn't get in, did I? What does it
:23:29. > :23:34.say? "they, available to collect and remove by 4. 4.00pm on Saturday 8th
:23:35. > :23:38.June. Never mind. Because I got shortlisted that is enough for me at
:23:38. > :23:48.the moment. It 's got to keep showing my work. Keep making and
:23:48. > :23:50.
:23:50. > :24:00.keep growing as an artist. I'm still young. I've got time. Ooh. There's a
:24:00. > :24:07.
:24:07. > :24:17.card in here. That looks, ooh, that is significant that. I'm in! I'm in!
:24:17. > :24:24.He-he. Varnishing Day. Oh, a week Monday. Iement' in! I'm in! I got in
:24:24. > :24:34.the Royal Academy again. You're joking? No I'm not. I've got in with
:24:34. > :24:35.
:24:35. > :24:38.Bodiam castle. Have you? That's brilliant. Ain't that lovely?
:24:38. > :24:43.Varnishing Day at the Royal Academy used to be a chance for painterses
:24:43. > :24:46.to apply a few final touches, but these days it's more of a
:24:46. > :24:53.celebration for the successful artists and also the first chance to
:24:53. > :25:03.see their works hanging on the walls of the Summer Exhibition. Oh, I can
:25:03. > :25:06.
:25:06. > :25:11.see it! That's a good position. It's not very good, is it? Just a few
:25:11. > :25:20.days before it opens to the public, the Royal Academy throws open its
:25:20. > :25:30.doors to invited art biest who have been queueing round the block. --
:25:30. > :25:30.
:25:30. > :25:35.buyers. Good to see you again. We have come together on Buyer's
:25:35. > :25:41.Day. We have indeed.Are expecting 4,000 to 5,000 people through the
:25:41. > :25:44.doors today. Everyone has a book, a price list, they are having a look.
:25:44. > :25:49.Red stickers have gone up beneath certain works. Since I have got to
:25:49. > :25:52.know you, Kate, I like you very much, I noticed you have a slightly
:25:52. > :25:56.competitive side? It has been said. It has been said. Do you remember
:25:56. > :26:06.when we met before and we were walking through the vaults? Yes.
:26:06. > :26:11.Works did we both select? Five. Five each. I've been told that I'm quite
:26:11. > :26:18.bad at masking my emotions. The score is. I might have to sit down.
:26:18. > :26:26.Tell me. The score is Kate Bryan 4, Alastair Sooke 2. I'm so happy.I
:26:26. > :26:30.thought you might be. Well done. Thank you. We should go on a victory
:26:30. > :26:35.lap for you. We will look at some of the pictures that made it in. Here
:26:35. > :26:38.is one. Yep.You liked this most of all? I thought, for me, if I
:26:38. > :26:42.switched off from work and I just thought something that I would
:26:42. > :26:46.really like b quite diverting and nice to have at home, I think I
:26:46. > :26:50.think I could live with that. news for you? It's sold.'s gone. It
:26:50. > :26:56.could have been yours for... What would you price this at? I don't
:26:56. > :27:02.know, �2,000. Somewhere between �2,000 and �5,000. I think you need
:27:02. > :27:08.to make Nelly an offer. In here it's �1,300. I should have got in
:27:08. > :27:12.earlier. The record, there is a print over there that I did pick out
:27:12. > :27:17.and then I put it back. I just want it to be known. If that makes you
:27:17. > :27:20.feel better. This is one of my two. Do you remember that one? I liked
:27:20. > :27:26.that. It still has a presence because it has that quietness and
:27:26. > :27:31.that sense of interiority. Your eye is drawn to it? It's the strongest
:27:31. > :27:41.work on that wall. , where shall we go next? Shall we do one of yourts
:27:41. > :27:46.or several of mine? I'm not enjoying this. I want to go home! You are not
:27:46. > :27:56.even drawing attention to it. There it is. Fine. I'm trying to play it
:27:56. > :27:56.
:27:56. > :27:59.cool. Here is another. Yes. Yes. No, you have a very, very good eye.
:27:59. > :28:03.is actually quite an interesting wall, I think. Because it has two of
:28:04. > :28:08.your works on it? I feel this room is a nice happy balance for us both
:28:08. > :28:12.because there are two works in here. Here is your photograph. Yes.There
:28:12. > :28:21.is mine. Both really good pieces. This is a fantastic room. I would
:28:21. > :28:25.hang, all of these works here in this corner in my gall wri --
:28:25. > :28:30.gallery. No problem. Maybe I should put the competition to one side and