Summer Exhibition

I’ve known Lyn since I was fourteen when she sported a PVC Mac. She went to art school and looked like Twiggy, I have her lithographs on my wall and drawings in the bathroom. She is dead clever, makes exemplary spinach flans with spinach from her garden and could have gone to Cambridge but decided not to.

She goes to lots of exhibitions and knows the names of all sorts of artists. On Thursday she took me to The Royal Academy summer exhibition. I’d done a voice over in Soho and made a slow walk down Piccadilly. The sun was hot. Firstly we had a cray fish roll in the tuck shop. A lot of money for a few bits of shellfish but it tasted delicious. We walked up the stone stairs into a crowd of arty women in linen and trainers. It was packed. Rooms and rooms of sculptures and water colours. Hanging mobiles and gouache. Rooms and rooms of portraits and knitted things. It was overwhelming. We stopped by a wall of womens’ art and chatted to two ex nurses who thought the display a littler funereal. A sign of the times sombre browns and monochrome markings. When Grayson Perry curated it was exuberant and colourful. This year the work spoke of the time we’re in. Upheaval and uncertainty.
I felt rotten admitting I wasn’t taken by it but Lyn understood. We sat outside in the sun. I spilt my tea on a big cookie, which was too sweet, and then we hugged. She left for Victoria and I left for Charing Cross.

Arts a funny business, I don’t know enough about it to talk coherently but there were some big jobbies selling for thousands and thousands of pounds, I wondered who bought them. Every single offering was a conversation by an artist, and in these times it begs the question ‘what is it for?’. Who goes to see it? Why do we go and ponder a picture hanging on a wall?
There was a very tall grandpa holding his new born grandson. The father of the baby wore tortoiseshell glasses and had a look of perplexed anxiety. The old man held the baby close to his chest as he studied the art. The baby fell asleep. A luxury Lyn and I didn’t have since she had paid a fortune for our visit. The image of the baby’s head cradled in the huge hand of his grandfather has lingered longer than the art.

I managed to catch the 3.54, the old git was waiting for me. We parked and walked to Boots for his hearing test. The audiologist was a chatty man, had been born prematurely and spent the first weeks of his life in intensive care. The experience of being nursed so young for so long has left him with white coat syndrome. Subliminal trauma. I thought of the tiny baby in his grandpappy’s arms and wondered whether he would have a similar experience when he grew up. Can you be traumatised by art?

The little baby was lucky to have such a cultured grandpa, we’ve all seen babies with mobile phones being entertained by squeaky voices and bilge. So we need art don’t we? We need the seers to see for us. We need the colourists to present us with joy. We need the modernists to make sense of 2024. We need artists to explain our changing world as seen through their visionary eyes, but for all of us not just ladies who lunch.

Standing at London bridge trains chuntered past with graffiti slapped on their coaches. Some of the offerings were a damn sight better than the Royal Academy had to offer, and it was free.
Nobody paints pictures to have them stacked up against a wall. Artists need to show their work. Actors need to act, singers need to sing and governments need to invest in the crazy creatives who given half a chance will make our world better.