The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2011: A Culture Show Special The Culture Show

Hello and welcome to this special edition of The Culture Show, coming

to you from the Royal Academy of Arts in London to mark the 243rd

On the show tonight, we are behind the scenes as the latest exhibition

comes together. I go to New York to meet Jeff Koons. This is rubber.

it is aluminium. He is sculpture now dominate the Royal Academy's

courtyard. Nancy Durrant explores a room based on the old idea of the

frame to frame salon hang. I cast a critical eye over gallery made up

of work only by Royal academics, among them some of the most famous

names in British art today. And Tom Dyckhoff chats to Piers Gough about

the star exhibits in the architecture room. Look what

happens behind your house, things go bananas. Also, I will be

following the fortunes of five artists, including my mum. She

submitted work to this exhibition, the largest and longest running

submission art show in the world. Jana Street-Porter and philip will

be revealing what they think of the exhibition this year. And we will

be announcing the winner of the 25,000 pound Wollaston Award for

the most distinguished work on display.

Every year, more than 150,000 people come to the Royal Academy to

visit the Summer Exhibition. And that is an enormous number, and

proves quite how popular this extraordinary show is, where work

by amateurs can hang side by side with pieces by some of the world's

most famous artists. But as a show it's quite unlike any other, so

here's a little guide from me to The Summer Exhibition has played a

key role in the British social calendar ever since the Royal

Academy of Arts was established in 1768. Every year its opening party

attracts the great, the good and the glitterati. But behind the

glamour the event is steeped in ritual and tradition. I've put

together a few facts and figures to show how this famous exhibition

comes together year after year after year. The main reason why the

Summer Exhibition causes so much excitement is because it's the

biggest open art exhibition in the world. And the idea is that anyone

can submit up to two works of art and, if they're accepted, they'll

be shown in the longest established gallery in the UK opening up a

whole new world of opportunity for This is Meeting King Neptune While

All At Sea. A reject for 2009. Giving it another go. How many

times have we submitted before? Probably about 10. One of this

year's artistic hopefuls is someone very close to my heart. This is a

picture of Alastair aged about eight years old. A my mum is a keen

amateur painter but this is her first attempt to get into the

summer exhibition. These are the two paintings I have decided to

submit. I have let rip and really just had a ball doing it because,

as you can see, I love colour. I would be thrilled to get in. If

somebody says "yes, you can be hanging on the wall in the Royal

Academy" it will be fantastic. have been doing some research into

my mother's chances of getting in, and the news is not great. Over

11,000 people have submitted work for this year's exhibition. That is

what that represents. 1200 works by 650 artists end up on display, but

of these some are by famous artists invited to take part, and over a

third are by Academy members. The rest come from public submissions,

but less than 200 of these artists will be showing for the first time.

Frankly, the figures don't really work in my mother's favour. The

judging of the public's work is carried out by a group of eminent

members of the Academy. They make sure the Summer Exhibition judging

occurs in exactly the same way as it has come for nearly 250 years.

think it is basically Bovril with some sherry in it. It sounds

disgusting, but in cold conditions it warms you up a bit. The rituals

of the selection process are the same every year. Works are rested

on this ancient stool and pictures are marked with an X, meaning

they've been rejected, or a D, meaning they'll go on to be

Artists don't have to give their real names when submitting. In 1947,

a painter called David Winter had two pictures accepted. Winter

turned out to be Winston Churchill. Like many good old-fashioned

British establishments, you get voted into the club by other

members. And at any one time there are meant to be 80 academicians and

all of them have to be under 75. New members are voted in once old

members reach 75, or if an No, I don't know who died to make

space for me. I suspect he moved on and got older. I say he because

there are a disproportionate number of men. Grayson Perry has just been

elected. I think there are obligations, obviously to uphold

the honour of artists, but I don't think artists necessarily have much

honour to uphold. I look far -- for what to joining in the running of

the Royal Academy. Many visitors to the Royal Academy may not realise

their entrance fee support not just an art gallery but an art school as

well. Students at the Royal Academy Schools can do a three-year

postgraduate fine art course without paying any tuition fees.

But how is such generosity possible? Partly because of the

Summer Exhibition, one of the ways the Royal Academy makes its money.

It cost �25 to enter work and there are usually around 11,000

submissions, that is already around a quarter of a million pounds in

the bank. Revenue is also created by tickets, and work in the show is

up for sale with the Royal Academy taking a 30% cut. Surprisingly, the

Royal Academy receives no public funding whatsoever, but there is a

secret to its financial survival, which is the rent on Burlington

House only cost them �1 a year, thanks to a lease agreement that

was sagely negotiated in 1868 to last for 999 years. The arrangement

has given the Royal Academy the freedom to stick to its own

traditions and rituals, particularly around the Summer

Exhibition. It's not every gallery that invites its artists to parade

down the street before the show, but its love of the old fashioned

has sometimes felt out of step with the times. Most famously just after

the war, when the President of the Royal Academy used the after dinner

speech to attack Modern Art. I find myself a president of the body of

men who feel that there is something in this so-called modern

art. If you paint a tree, for Lord's sake, try and paint it!

Royal Academy has been accused of occasionally taking refuge from

radical new ideas and being out of touch, but more recently it has

made a strong effort to shed that image. People love the summer show.

It is still going every year for almost two-and-a-half centuries,

despite everything. One of the reasons it has surprised his

because it keeps a dream alive for hopeful young artist and a few

years ago one of those hopefuls was me. I submitted this piece. It is a

conceptual sculpture consisting of a jar of red Mantel's. It is a

portrait of my mother about maternity, memory and a tribute to

the ready-mades of Marcel Duchamp. I don't think those complexities

were understood, and even if they did it got rejected. This year it

is my mother chasing the dream of getting into the exhibition. Let's

hope she did better than I did. We will find out later if my mother

has managed to get her paintings into the show, but I have been

joined by two people who have been to lots of exhibitions over the

years - Janet Street-Porter and philip. What do you normally make

for the exhibition? It is normally a bit of a mess, normally quite

chaotic. In the middle of it there are some gems. Over the last few

years they have been trying to make it more serious and engaged.

broadly speaking, a fan? Yes. Qualified. Qualified than. Jan it,

what about you? I am a snob about it. I always come out of good

thinking why did I bother, it is so annoying. At the same time there is

this art show in Venice, the Venice Biennale, and people are more

forgiving. You have this huge show and you have complete rubbish

BRILLIANT work. But when you go around the Royal Academy, I'm

afraid there is good stuff but it is like going to a car boot sale,

you have to pick through to find something rewarding. I am sorry to

put you through this again, but he both kindly agreed to have a look

and we will catch up with the later. Before we go inside, I want to show

you this enormous and very playful joyful stainless steel sculpture

called Coloring Book. It is by the American artist Jeff Koons, and

recently I went to New York to meet him. In the world of contemporary

art, Jeff Koons is a global superstar. His work delights in the

aesthetics of trash culture and it sells for millions. I have always

found Jeff Koons a fascinating artist, partly because it is so

tricky to get a handle on what he does. He is the king of kitsch and

his work makes people feel uneasy because it seems like the epitome

of bad-taste, and yet it sells for so much money. I can never work out

whether it is purely superficial or perhaps offers a searing commentary

on the banality of our world. Nobody ever really knows for sure

and that is what makes his work so interesting. Can I do what you did?

This looks like rubber, is it metal? It is aluminium. There is

something I have always wanted to ask you, because you really use

popular culture so much in your work and I can never work out if

you are celebrating it, or may be satirising it. Which is it? It I am

celebrating it. I enjoy the life, I enjoy the world, and I don't

believe in judgment so it is about acceptance. I work with inflatables

because they are life-saving devices. It is like being in the

water and you have something to hold onto. In the water with this,

you would sink. It is a symbol. are producing objects which most

people would overlook, replacing them in the gallery, but you try to

make banal things. What is the thinking behind it? I am not

trying! I follow my interests, and I think honesty is something people

find shocking. Am always very honest about my interest. One of

his particular interests is the imagery of childhood. His stainless

steel sculpture for the summer exhibition is based on a picture

from a child's colouring book. comes from an image from Winnie the

Pooh so I made my own watercolour drawing on top of it. Is that what

this is? Yes, this is taking the watercolour and the market during,

and then breaking it down into those colours so I can create a

sculpture from it. Childhood dreams are so strong in your work, is that

an important way of looking at the world? Children do not participate

in judgment. They are open to everything. They love colours and

to smell the grass. There is no judgment. There is a sadder side to

his fascination with childhood. Coloring Book is part of a series

of work called Celebration, which he used to reach out to his son

after being taken to Italy following a custody battle with his

My son was taken to a foreign country, I was never able to get

him back. To a distance, this helps me to communicate to my son, how

much I loved him. Can I ask why you are drawn to working in stainless

steel? It is something that has happened again and again through

your career? It reflects you and it needs you. Without you it does not

exist. If you state something that is polished and put it in a dark

room, it disappears. It only reflects its environment. Art is

never in the object, art is inside the viewer. A reflective surface

continues to communicate that. Imagine it will be a very different

experience seeing an 18ft high stainless steel coloured sculpture,

to seeing the drawing, so I'm looking forward to it a lot. Thank

you. Thank you, I enjoyed today. Jeff Koons is one of the biggest

names in contemporary art, yet here he is in a show with a load of

unknowns. That is the charm for me of the Summer Exihibition. I was

allowed into the vaults of the Royal Academy to rifle through the

works sent in by the members of the public, to see if I could spot

anything that may make it on to the walls of the final exhibition.

These are all works of art that have made it through the first

stage of the selection process, but there is no guarantee that they

will be chosen by the curators. I want to have a quick rummage around

and see if I can pull out a few artworks that catch my eye and I

think are good enough to be So let's have a little leaf through.

I think that the judges have 11,000 submissions, they have to look at

them so quickly, to make a snap judgment, in a sense I'm doing it

too slowly. I should be whipping through it. Oh, look at this box.

Now, this I really like. It seems to be a book and the pages are

hollowed out. Inside is a mad, what looks like a 19th century prints of

dogs and people from the tropics, soldiers and old maps. Let's have a

look at the label. The book sculpture is made by Alexander

Korzer-Robinson, an artist from Berlin, based in Bristol. He has

never submitted anything to the Summer Exihibition before. The way

that I work, I cut out images in the books where they are in the

books. I build a composition from the front to the back. I like to

work with Encyclopaedias a lot. You get a variety of different themes

and images that are really un- related other than by their place

in the alphabet, really. So there is a lot of potential to develop a

narrative. I think that this has got a great deal of imagination. It

is different. So, for that reason, I'm going to go with it. I think

that this will make it into the final show. This piece is very

different to what has come before, but when you say Royal Academy

royal -- Royal Academy Summer Exihibition, it conjures up, in

many people's minds, I suspect, something painted like this. It is

very well painted. It is possibly a little bit old-fashioned, but I

think there is a deaf place for it, so I will hedge my bets and say

this is a contender. The painter of The Greenhouse is by David Newens.

He has submitted every year since the mid-1980s and so far has been

selected six times. I have painted greenhouse interiors several times

before. I do like the relationship between almost an abstract

structure against the flowers. I'm not a flower painter. I don't just

paint a bunch of flowers, but the colour harm onis that you get of

the various plants in a greenhouse, off-set against a strong structure,

provides to me a very nice subject. Now this... This piece is so weird!

Check this out. It's a painting. I should not be touching the frame.

The paint has continued on to the frame by someone called PJ Crook

called "The Infant". I describe the style as naive. PJ Crook has shown

15 times at the Summer Exihibition, "The Infant" is one of two painting

she has submitted for consideration this year. There is something

obviously -- obvious about the idea of a naked new-born riding on a

tiger. It feels like Blake. A visionary piece of another world.

It is odd, I quite like the oddness. So I think I'll pick this one.

feels evocative to me of the situation we are in now, where the

tiger is an endangered species and our environment is in danger too. I

like the idea that the infant and the tiger in it are in harmony. So

rather like man and his environment should be, they are working

together and the angels there as a guiding presence. That's quite hard

to read this, initially. It seems quite gloomy. It looks like, I

guess a big glass skyscraper and there, that seems to be graffiti? I

guess the thing that caught my eye here is all of this mark-making all

over the place. Let's have a look at the label. What is it? Wow!

Medium Photography. What?! That's amazing. I thought that this was a

painting. I quite like this. Let's hang on to it. The picture is by

Isidro Ramirez, a Spanish photographer living in London. This

is the first time he has tried to get into the Summer Exihibition.

There are four photographs of the same building, photographing the

four corners of the building and then putting them together through

a digital process. It creates a very glostly image at the end. That

does not correspondent to anything. It is a creation. The work is about

the limitations of photography, what it has to represent a place.

In this case a building. Now I'm not saying that those four works

are necessarily the greatest pieces of art ever made, but I do think

that they deserve a place in the Summer Exihibition. They caught my

eye, you have to follow your instinct. They had a certain

strangeness. The sad thing is that I have no say in the process

whatsoever. It is the curators that have the final decision about all

of the works in the Summer Exihibition, but I will be keeping

my fingers firmly crossed. I'll let you know if my choices turned out

to be good ones, but I want to show you this, far and away, the biggest

gallery in the show. As you can see, it's been hung in a busy American.

An attempt to refer back to the history of the Summer Exihibition.

Nancy Durrant was here when the room was put together. The Summer

Exihibition has never looked quite like any other show. Right from the

start, back in 1769, the RA crammed its walls what paintings hung from

floor-to-ceiling in a style known as the Salon Hang. A visit to this

show was very different to our experience of galleries now. We are

used to a cool, calm, light, open space with a great deal of thought

put into how best it hang a work. The Summer Exihibition, on the

other hand was mayhem! So, tell me about the Salon Hang, how did it

work? Well, as this print shows, you stacked them high, racked them

deep, essentially, frame-to-frame, literally touching each other.

There is not an inch of space? is what they were trying to achieve.

In recent years, when the smaller paintings have packed the walls,

the larger gallery spaces were hung more sparsely, however, that is not

what academician, Christopher Le Brun, is planning for this year.

It's not working. Let's put them up on the rack. He is responsible for

the biggest gallery in the show. He decided to revisit the idea of the

Salon Hang. A lot of the strategy of contemporary art is to control

the responses of the vier. So you go into the whilst gallery, there

is a single painting. You appreciate it, it is wonderful, but

you are controlled as to how you see it, what is said. When you come

into a gallery with 500 paintings in it, you cannot control the

response of the spectator. So, it is a very, very different notion.

It is very anarchic and exciting. Is there anybody to be a bit

disconcerted by where their picture ends up? It is difficult to please

everybody. Year after year as we come in, you never know how your

colleagues feel about where their work is. The problem is that there

are many different languages going on at the same time. It could be

tote chaos, a sort of Babel, really confusing. To make sense of the

chaos, Christopher Le Brun is hanging the framed and unframed

works on different walls. There is a sort of logic to it. The framed

paintings coming down here, more figure rative, smaller scale of

touch and handling, narrative, moving through, coming round to get

a more, a sort of more questioning sense of space and a freer sense of

comma. Although inspired by the traditional Salon Hang, he has not

followed the old rules to the letter. There is more wall space

visible in the gallery than would have been the case in the 18th and

the 19th centuries. This is a scaled representation of the 1851

exhibition. And the pictures are hung floor-to-ceiling frame-to-

frame? Yes, here is the prime position given to 551. That work

down there, 561 is a work by mill away -- Millais. Why so low? Maybe

the Academy were making a point?! Really? There used to anybody the

traditional hanging such a thing as "skying" that was a snub, but there

are these Irvine up at the top, but they work out? The reason it was a

snub, you could not see them, but with Christopher Le Brun, you can

see that right from the other side of the room. It still works. Were

you ever tempted to do the real, kind of proper, squeezed in Salon

Hang? It was partly my idea to do that, but in fact, you have to be

flexible. It is no good coming in with a tough idea and shoe horning

everything into it. We are just watching and adapting as we go.

It's kind of like a jigsaw, suspect it? Jigsaw, meets Sudoku, meets 3-

dimensional chess! Now, this room through here is one of the smaller

galleries in the show. It is the Architect's Room. It is packed full

of the surprisingly beautiful and intricate models and drawings. Tom

Dyckhoff went to have a look at it as it was installed. It is strange

to come to thekm architect's Room in the Summer Exihibition, but what

draws me here is that you are guaranteeed to find surprises

inside. I'm expecting a wealth of surprises this year. As Piers Gough,

the flamboyant architect is in charge. Maybe the playful one? Yeah,

that thing. Piers Gough is famous for his colourful, bold buildings

and has stated that his mission is to combat dreariness. This room

reflects that, a rye ot of colour, texture and ideas. Oh, kpwre!

Before putting his final touches to the room, he has agreed to show me

some of the highlights from the show. The most important structure

at the moment, with the Olympics coming up is King's Cross and what

to do with it. What happens under the ground at King's Cross is

almost beyond belief. Insane. There is this concourse, and underneath

this calmness, the beautiful swan is this frantic pedalling

underneath of getting the escalators, the routes, down into

the various stueb stations sorted out. This is brilliantly engineered

stuff. By this time next year, this magnificent piece of infrastructure

Then a building that has a tin of mackerel. This is exuberance that

you may not expect from an older generation, but it is so lovely. So

much reflects the feeling of architecture now, that is that you

You can see it is getting behind the facade, peeling the surface.

am so jealous, I really wish I had designed that. It is so beautiful,

the ridge and furrow. Some buildings, you just think I wish I

had Dom R. That is one of them. What is fascinating about this new

generation emerging is that they are so experiment are tiered. We

have this building next to this building, I don't quite know what

it is. Maybe it is a shelter that doesn't! The pavilion? It is coming

towards sculpture and slightly towards a bicycle helmet. One thing

you can't avoid is that the computer is allowing so many

expressive forms to come through in architecture. He can design by

computer for quite a long time, and now you can build it with a

computer. He what about this staircase. Was that built in a

similar way? Isn't it dreamy? Who would have thought the computer

would bring you back to Art Nouveau? Businesses seem to have an

image of toughness, and now they are being used for this insanely

complicated gorgeous stuff. This is being built. It is not just a model,

they have actually constructed it so it is very exciting times where

these forms are made possible again and it is now just up to your brain.

Can you invented? Can you think of it? If you look across the room, it

is such a rich stew. Do you think that causes problems? It is so

complex, a building can almost be anything. Does that present a

problem? What could be more daunting than to be presented with

an architectural establishment that really only does things more or

less one way? And you have got to accept it. That was perhaps the

perception of architecture in the 60s or 70s, now blown apart, but we

are not even fighting amongst ourselves about that. It is just

the nature of the way we are now and I welcome it because it gives

me space to work. I know you have got a lot of work still to do, I

don't want to hold you up any more. There it is, finished, and I think

it looks fantastic. Over here is a room curated by an artist called

Michael Craig-Martin, who is very influential, so I was intrigued to

see what he had done when I came a couple of weeks ago. Michael Craig-

Martin is one of the most important artists working in Britain today,

not just because of his own work but because he was the

inspirational teacher behind a whole generation of young British

artists who studied at Goldsmiths College in the 80s and 90s.

Grego six inches over? A member of the Academy since 2006, he has

decided only to show work by fellow Royal academicians in his room. I

have come to see this room before the exhibition has opened. There is

obviously a piece that will go there, but first impressions...

This feels strong. These are confident works, also recognisable.

This is a Tony Cragg. Richard Deacon. This cloud, which looks

like a metallic swarm of bees, that is by Antony Gormley. In is very

enjoyable curating a show like this because, if you have good toys to

go with, it is nice to go to the playground. Because I want this

room to show off these people, I have encouraged people to show work

that is recognisably theirs, rather than something which is off the

beaten track from what people expect. There will be works which

are signature works. One of the most easily identifiable pieces on

display is a colourful word painting by Michael Grade. I quite

like the fact that, quite unashamedly, he has hung a number

of works next to his painting by artists that he taught. Fiona Rae,

Gary -- Gary Hume... It he rejected me the first time I tried to get

into the college in 2004, then accepted me later but I don't bear

a grudge. This is a reworking of Cezanne's famous painting of

bathers. The original hangs in the National Gallery, where Landy is

currently Artist in Residence. It is literally a copy. But I

didn't draw in front of the painting, I was too embarrassed, I

got a postcard. It is a lovely thing to draw because once you get

into the rhythm of that it is about shapes. Similar to what I would

have done as a child, just copying out of books. And there is a Tracey

-- Tracey Emin up here. I wonder if there was a risk of so many

powerful and familiar pieces creating a slight sense of deja-vu.

It is a little bit expected. These are artists whose work I feel like

I have seen often, often at the Summer Exhibition as well. I think

Michael Craig-Martin was going for an artist's brand, signature style,

but in a sense I would like something more surprising. I wish

there was more mischief in the room. That said, the one piece I have not

talked about yet if is this. A think it is very beautiful. The

artist who made the peace is Cornelia Parker. It is flattened

sugar bowls made from silver plate. It is like an encyclopaedia of

sugar bowls which have all been gone. They have been squashed by a

metal bending press. I spend most of my time taking things apart, so

I like to use objects found in the world and rejigging them slightly.

I have rocked the volume but given it back through suspension so it is

like a real animation. A one challenge was to create a dialogue

between all the works on display. If you look up here you can see

here's this Tracey Emin neon "I whisper to my past, do I have

another choice?" and the answer is, if you look down below, Michael

Craig-Martin's painting, which says fate with a very closed gate, the

answer is "sorry, love, you don't". It's delicate though, isn't it? The

idea of whispering to your past is sort of what's going on with the

Cornelia Parker piece as well. Maybe I've been a bit unfair, maybe

there is a greater degree of subtlety in the room than I first

Michael Craig-Martin is famous for being a teacher as well as an

artist, and if I were forced to try and grade his homework here, I'd

say he'd done a very good job. It's very solid, a very substantial room

but I wish there'd been a few more unexpected moments. I love art that

has a slightly naughty, anarchic side. There's the odd moment like

that, the David Mach collage really has it I think. The Bill Woodrow

sculpture, which is just a little bit bizarre, has it as well. And I

love those qualities. But this piece is the star of the show for

me. This Cornelia Parker. It strikes a slightly different note

to some of the more bombastic paintings and sculptures elsewhere

in the room that have obvious wall power. This is just a bit more

subtle and for that reason I think this is the piece I'll remember for

the longest. I've come back outside into the sunshine to catch up with

our guests, Philip Hensher and Janet Street-Porter, you've just

been looking round the show. Now I brought with me the list of works

and this year there are almost 1200 pieces in the exhibition. So Philip

why don't you start, how on earth can anyone make sense of this

cacophony of art? It is less cacophonous then it has been in the

past. It focuses around two brilliant rooms. There is a

fantastic room by Michael Craig- Martin which is very authoritative.

There is also a great room of international contributors, with a

Baselitz and Key For. The two German heavyweight painters. Yes,

terrific. That is very positive. John it, you thought it was like a

car boot sale before you went in. still think so. I would agree with

Philip, the best room is without a doubt the one curated by Michael

Craig-Martin. Isn't he a friend of yours? He is, but what is good

about that room is that it has less in it. We start from a position of

going into her room which is calm, ordered, and you agree with the way

it is thinking. It really sings out, and you can only contrast it with

the cacophony of some of the other rooms, where there is the Great

Room, the largest room of all, it has this weird thing where they

decided to hang it like the salon. I thought they would cram things in

up against each other, but what it is they have put on one long wall a

lot of completely abysmal - and I don't mince my words here -

landscapes. It is what I call walking the dog in the Park

paintings. It didn't even seem honk in the 19th century style, I

couldn't see how it deferred. not like the salon hang, it is more

like a miscellaneous village hall hang really. There was something

very controlled and hierarchical about these salon hangs, which

doesn't try to achieve at all. There is also the question that so

much of the painting in that the groom is terrible. It is really,

really terrible. I picked out four or 5 paintings which had any kind

of quality, which is not a high strike rate. Given there are 40

along the wall, it is not great. wrote down here "room five" Which

was hung by Tess Jaray, a really good artist. She has written on her

a note, "this room is hung for people who are sensitive,

intelligent and thoughtful". Nothing like being patronising, and

yet it has the same cacophony as all the other rooms. What was your

stand out peas? Probably Cornelia Parker's work, the diptych with the

Budget box. Not the levitating silver? I like the Budget box

because I loved the diptych, the two images. What it is saying is

that women control everything. Philip, how about you? No question,

the Edmund De Waal ceramics Cabinet. It is 30 pieces of sports learn

with that magical historic White delays. You are so drawn into this,

it is so rich. I could look at it forever. It is a very tranquil

peace, isn't it? Yes, he is a wonderful artist. I loved the

levitating silver Cornelia Parker pieces, but I also enjoyed looking

at the Baselitz painting. The upside-down Helms against this eye-

popping yellow. It is basically the area of my flat, it is so big and

it has a lot of war power. He is incredible, Baselitz. Those are our

favourite artworks but sadly none of them made it on to the judges'

shortlist for the Wollaston Award. It is not as famous as the Turner

Prize, the winner does get the same amount of money, �25,000. Then

Lewis went to look at the shortlisted works and listen in as

The Wollaston Award is given every year to the most distinguished work

in the Summer Exihibition. The judges have identified a short-

list of seven artworks. I've come to take a look at what they have

chosen. First on the list is a sculpture by a well-known

minimalist, Martin Creed. It is four chairs of different sizes,

stacked on top of each other. I can hear you scoff and say this

is not a sculpture, but take a look at it. What makes us look at this

to thing it is art? Well it is tall and totemic. It has an elgant

colour scheme, it looks -- an elgaent colour scheme, it looked

organised. There is precision in the size of each chair, the legs

somehow fit the seat of the chair underneath. That is clever and the

red chair forming a phinth. That is smart. Throw away junk and pop it

on top of each other to get an organised structure? Ten out of ten.

The judges have chosen two works in Michael Craig-Martin's room. One is

by painter, Gary Hume. It looks very cute and in fact it is based

on an image or photograph, perhaps, of a young child or a baby, but,

what Gary Hume has done with this, he has created a cons mate abstract

colour-filled painting in his own style. It is very, very refined. He

has a wonderful sense of line and the colours are gorgeous. Lots of

pastel pinks and blues and browns. It is a surprise for the eye to be

moving around the painting and encountering different, unusual,

splopblgs of colour. In the same room is a sculpture leaning against

the wall, it is by Alison Wilding. It is composed of just three

elements, a foam circle, a copper circle and a small resin sphere.

You can see each of the decisions that the artist has taken here.

Three simple contrasting textures. The best comparison that one can

make is that this is like Italian cooking. That is about few

ingredients but high-quality, you combine them, cook them quickly and

end up with something delicious and fresh. Sitting amongst the three

dimensional pieces in the Student tower Room is a abstract painting

by Frank Bowling. It is like an essay in paint. There are dabs of

green and turquiose and a lovely crimson orange background. Then as

you come down the picture, the painting is cascading like a

waterfall. You get to the bottom, the paint is trier, thicker. It is

plastered on a bit. You could read it as foam or Earth. There you have

it, a landscape made from the textures and the qualities of paint.

Onya McAusland's piece. That slips from its boundaries and on to the

side of it. It is saying something quieter about the nature of

painting and the materials. The effort of this work is not in the

surface, that is three brush strokes, if is in where the

materials come from. The artist goes into mines and other obscure

locations to find substances that she has to treat and process and

then comes up with a wonderful shade of turquiose that is

delivered to us in three brushstrokes on this small and

slight work of art. It's a good trick.

James Hugonin's painting is more complicated to look at. A grid of

tiny multi-coloured boxes. This colour grid is not based on a

random sequence of colours organised by a computer. This is

all painted by the artist, it takes months! His work has meant he has

looked at it close and from far away to create this painting. You

get a feeling of something undulating and glowing and

throbbing in front of us. It is gorgeous, pain-staking, deliberate

work. Last on the list is a painting by Italian artist and

honourary Royal Academician, mim ow -- MimmoPaladino.

What a gorgeous painting. It is remarkable of a place that this

chap can evoke with a few strokes of white paint on a fantastically

bright, lucious, marine background. A good picture, a bit of a tour de

force. So those are my thoughts on the seven artworks shortlisted for

the Wollaston Award, but which will the judge's decide is the most

distinguished? Is they going to go for sploshes, dribbles or the stuff

that is done with masking tape? love the Onya McAusland for the way

that it changes everything so subtley. Yet I think that I would

elevate the Gary Hume or the Alison Wilding above that, each of them I

find powerful and compelling and so of the moment, somehow. 7 Coming

down to two, I think that I would pick Frank Bowling and Alison

Wilding. For me, the Wildfire, this material of foam, gently sagging

against the wall and then caught with this wonderful intervention of

the copper and the globe-like object inserted into it, it does it

for me. It is both discreet, awkward and in a way almost a

little bit annoying in the space and so that one really does stand

out for me and does have that quality of distinction and

distinguishedness about it. Yes. Are we edging towards the

Wilding? To be surprising at a time when art can be anything it is

amazing. If it is surprising, which I thing -- think it is, I would

support that. So, everybody is happy. We have a

final decision and the winner is Alison Wilding's "Take A Deep

Breath." So, this is the winner. I am really

happy about that. This is beautiful. There is a simplicity. It has the

beauty of transparency. You can see all of the decisions that the

artist has made. Lastly, it has the beauty of modesty. It is just

leaning against the wall, saying look at me if you want to, but I'm

not going to dominate the space. Those are all very important things

in art today. That's why I think this is a wonderful piece of

artwork to win the prize. A few days later, I'm off to meet Alison

Wilding in her studio. She thinks that we are here to give an

interview, but I have been allowed to tell her about the competition.

I have some wonderful news for you. Have you? You have won the

Wollaston Award? Really? Are you joking? No! I think this that is

amazing. Congratulations! So, very good news

for Alison Wilding, congratulations to her, but what about my specially

selected art works and my mum who entered the public process. Was it

good news for them? Well, here they all are on the day that they got

PJ Crook and David Newens had both shown oft no-one the past, but will

their paintings be selected this time? Thank you for entering this

year's Summer Exihibition, with over 11,000 entries, the

competition was extremely strong, however I'm delighted to inform you,

that your work, "Greenhouse Interior" has been selected and

hung in the exhibition. "The Infant" and "Revolution" have

been selected and hung in the exhibition.

Great news. Really it is extremely pleasing. I

was already delighted to be chosen by the art critic, Alastair Sooke,

for the Culture Show programme. So this is really an added extra,

brilliant news. I'm really delighted. Especially as they have

exhibited both. Will things go so well for first-

time applicants, Isidro Ramirez and Alexander Korzer-Robinson? Are you

excited? Yes! I'm sorry to inform you that the work was not hung in

the exhibition. However it was short-listed which is a fine

achievement. So, it is not in the exhibition, it's not been selected.

It is natural to be a little bit disappointed, but to be short-

listed is an achievement so I will take the positive and be happy with

it. I'm delighted to inform you that your work, Strictly Come

Dancing It Takes Two has been accepted to the -- that your work

has been accepted into the competition.

Fantastic! There is one artist left to open her letter.

Hello, how are you? Good. Have you been think being this?

Only a little bit. Fleetingly. You do seem nervous? I am a little.

Ready? Thank you for entering this year's Summer Exihibition, with

over 11,000 entries, the competition was very strong. On

this occasion, I'm sorry to inform you that your two works were not

selected for this exhibition. Oh! Oh, well. That's a shame.

That is a shame. I think that they made a mistake. My poor mum! I'm

still feeling so gutted for her. I may be slightly biased, but I

really thing that she deserved to make it through. The reality is

that getting work past the hanging Committee, it can be tough. That

said, I'm chuffed about the artists that I chose, three out of the four

that I chose have made it through and their work is on display.

Over there is the book structure, there is the greenhouse painting

and up there, the two paintings by PJ Crook. If you would like to see

them for yourself, and indeed the rest of the Summer Exihibition it

is open until Monday the 15th of August. The Culture Show is back on

mund with a show all about the Kennedys. Thank you for watching.

Good night. I tend to like the things, I must

admit, that I can recognise what they are. I come about eight times.

You are kidding? I think it is nice that people can come to the Royal

Academy and have works of arts, access to them for a few hundred

dead pounds. It was an impulse buy. There is the dog in the trash can,

it is moving around and all kinds of surprising.

I think it is brilliant. There is something for everybody and

everybody can enter. I am really impressed. I did not expect that.

It is great, everything is so different. An excellent variety of

artwork, some of it expensive, some of it is very cheap.

We bought this, a little owl by Tracey Emin. I tried to buy a piece