Now in its 244th year, the exhibition continues the tradition of showcasing work by both emerging and established artists in all media including painting, sculpture, photography, printmaking, architecture and film. This year’s Summer Exhibition, coordinated by Royal Academician Tess Jaray, attracted 11,000 entries, the highest number in its history, and only approximately 1,500 were selected to go on display.

The exhibition begins in the Wohl Central Hall, whose bright red walls pay homage to Matisse’s 1911 painting ‘The Red Studio’ while framing a diverse range of work that introduces visitors to the richness and variety of work on display throughout the Academy. From this space, visitors can glimpse the architecture gallery straight ahead. This year, this thematic gallery was curated by architects Chris Wilkinson and Eva Jiricna with the purposeful intention to blur the boundaries between architecture and the fine arts.

It is clear from exploring the architecture gallery that this discipline has never been granted such an important role in the recent history of the Royal Academy of Art’s Summer Exhibitions: not only do the drawings and models overflow from the architecture gallery into other rooms, but a large installation by Chris Wilkinson has taken over the Annenberg Courtyard. Titled ‘From Landscape to Portrait’, Wilkinson’s piece comprises a series of 11 wooden frames twisted through 90 degrees on a reflective basis that also incorporates a seating area for visitors.

Throughout the galleries of the Academy, the emphasis has been on developing a concerted approach to appreciating and exploring the potential of colour and shape, and no other space does it better than Gallery III, the grandest space in Burlington House. Curated by Tess Jaray, rather than presenting large art works in its vast space, this room contains a large quantity of smaller colourful paintings displayed on its grey walls in an undulating and flowing layout, demonstrating that work of a more modest scale can be as powerful as larger work.

The remaining galleries have been curated by artists Barbara Rae (with a focus on exploring landscape architecture and the work of Scottish and Irish artists), Peter Freeth and Chris Orr (who chose to emphasise the artisanal and tactile qualities of print as well as the diversity of large and small scale prints, including artists books – a creative category of work that has been garnering increased visibility in recent Summer Exhibitions), Mali Morries and Humphrey Ocean (who selected a diverse range of work by Royal Academicians), Stephen Chambers (whose curatorial criteria focused on the variety of media and materials used to produce art), and Alison Wilding (who selected varied sculptures ranging in scale, content and ambition).


The Royal Academy of Arts was established by King George III in 1768 with one of its founding principles being to ‘mount an annual exhibition open to all artists of distinguished merit’ to finance the training of young artists studying at the Royal Academy Schools. This exhibition has been held every year without interruption since 1769 and, in its current embodiment as the Summer Exhibition, it continues to play a significant part in raising funds to finance students through the sale of most works displayed.

The Royal Academy of Art’s 2012 Summer Exhibition opens to the public on 4 June and will close on 12 August 2012.

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Hetflaisz hails from Poland, where he was raised in a farm in a small village during the communist regime. He studied Environmental Sciences at Warsaw University before deciding to move to London where he pursued his passion for photography. His work is now part of many private collections and has been published in numerous publications, including Tatler, Modern Painters, and The Independent on Sunday.

Hetflaisz’s ‘Fragments’ and ‘Shadow Figures’ series of photographs (the artist’s first ever exhibition) is currently on display at Gallery 27 in central London. The exhibition (open until 3 March 2012) comprises some 60 photographs taken in travels around the world over the past four years, with an emphasis on the process of capturing the material qualities of landscapes and the seductive elements of nature and human shapes.

‘Fragments’ includes diverse subjects such as Masai settlements perched on a cliff’s edge in Tanzania, water in the pool of a fountain in Guatemala, the rough and yet colourfully painted skin of an adorned elephant in India, and the space within a glacier in Patagonia, Argentina. If this series (on the ground floor of the gallery) mostly removes the human subject to concentrate on vibrant textures and experiment with stunning colour contrasts and effects, ‘Shadow Figures’ (in the gallery’s basement) focuses on how classical black and white techniques can be appropriated to explore the dimensions of the human body and natural shapes in the environment. This section of the exhibition also reveals a clear admiration of the human body’s potential as a creative canvas, better evidenced in a photograph where a figure is devoid of human traits in order to celebrate the qualities, textures, shapes, and shades of antique marble statues.

In the introduction to the exhibition’s catalogue, author and historian Gail Buckland (former curator of the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain, and visiting professor at the Cooper Union in New York City) sums up Hetflaisz’s creative process adroitly by describing his work as having ‘a deep sense of nature, the magic of the earth and man’s place in it’. We would add that Hetflaisz has an acute sense of perception that is made even more striking and poignant when one realises that this is someone who has acquired deeply proficient photographic techniques purely on his own and not through any formal training.

Furthermore, Hetflaisz’s photographs are tremendously enthralling and highly accomplished in how they perceive landscapes and physical silhouettes in ways that enhance the viewer’s perception of reality, which, as any photographer knows, is no mean feat. As such, the colours and shades of a glacier, a scenery portrayed from a bird’s eye perspective, the immediacy of a movement, or the texture of skin are significantly enriched for the viewer through effective command of techniques and skilful perceptions of empirical personal realms.

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Nick Elias, from the Bartlett School of Architecture (UCL) received the highest design prize of the evening, the RIBA Silver Medal (awarded to the best design project at Part 2 – Diploma/Masters level) for ‘PoohTown’.

Simon Dean, from Kingston University, was awarded the Bronze Medal (for best design project at Part 1 – degree level) for ‘Flow, 1944’.

Jasper Ludewig was awarded the Dissertation Medal for ‘Made Ground: A spatial history of Sydney Park’, submitted by the University of Sydney, Australia.

Silver Medal High Commendation:
Justin Cawley from the University of Sydney for ‘An Ark for Endangered Atmospheres’

Silver Medal Commendations:
Yannis Halkiopoulos from the University of Westminster for ‘Brooklyn Co-operative’
Louis Sullivan from the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, for ‘The Living Dam’

Bronze Medal Commendations:
Samuel Little from London Metropolitan University for ‘City Frame: The reappropriation of Maple House’
Emily Priest from the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, for ‘Rong Xhan Safehouse’
Ho Yeung Tsang from the University of Hong Kong for ‘Urban Living Transition: Vanishing heritage of Hong Kong residence’

Dissertation Medal High Commendation:
Ekaterina Tikhoniouk from University College Dublin for ‘Towards a Common Ground for Play: Examining the history of play and playgrounds in Dublin’s Liberties’

Dissertation Medal Commendation:
Leon Fenster from the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, for ‘Exilic Landscapes: Synagogues and Jewish architectural identity in 1870s Britain’

Serjeant Awards for Excellence in Drawing:
Part 1: Oliver Riviere from the University of Brighton for ‘The Institute of Concrete Poetry’
Part 2: Adam Bell for the University of Greenwich for ‘The Restored Commonwealth Club’

The UK office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) also awarded the SOM Foundation Fellowships UK, selected from this year’s entries for the RIBA President’s Medals, to Kent Gin from the University of East London for ‘Cultural Perforation of Madrid, Disruption of the Defined’ and Mike Lim from the Royal College of Art, for ‘Untitled, 2014. Mixed Media’.

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However, the most significant of Burberry’s achievements over the last year was the expansion of its retail network, with some existing stores being refurbished and nine mainline stores opened. Earlier in the year, the brand inaugurated a new flagship store in China (located in Shanghai’s Kerry Centre), and reopened its flagship store in San Francisco (in a four-floor historic townhouse on Post Street). More recently, Burberry reopened an expanded two-floor store in Munich, unveiled its biggest store to date in Japan (occupying four floors of a building in Omotesando, Tokyo), and opened a new flagship store in Los Angeles.

To mark the opening of the Los Angeles store (set on the corner of Rodeo Drive and Dayton Way in Beverly Hills), Burberry’s design director Christopher Bailey unveiled the Burberry Rodeo Drive Walk of Style plaque, which commemorates the contribution the brand has made to the fashion industry and its connection with Los Angeles’ entertainment community.

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Claiming inspiration from the fantastical science-fiction undertones of the 2013 film Under the Skin (directed by Jonathaazer and featurin Glng Scarlet Johansson), the collection is anchored by a colour palette of black (with occasional accents of sand, pink and off-white), with leather playing a prominent role as the material of choice (in either soft or heavier versions) against soft wool. Silhouettes juxtapose urban subcultures (through hoodies and biker jackets fastened by zippers) while channelling suave dandyism in the form of tuxedo jackets with peaked lapels, sharply angular shoulder and collar lines, and merino wool tops incorporating blocks of chiffon.

At the same time, stark details such as slit elbows, horizontal and vertical appliquéd fabric stripes on trousers, and cropped, sleeveless shirts serve to elongate the shape of the body while subtly drawing attention to the role of flesh in engendering the physicality of contemporary menswear.

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A true polymath, Asim graduated from the Bartlett School of Architecture (UCL) and completed postgraduate studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science before undertaking the United Nations Development Program, an avenue he did not wish to pursue once he decided to become a psychoanalyst. During his psychoanalytic training he became fascinated with the roles that clothing and appearance played in relation to mind and body and, after embarking on a number of internships in the London fashion industry that started with Maurice Sedwell of Savile Row and ended at Vivienne Westwood, Asim attended Central Saint Martins, where he specialised in creative pattern cutting. 

In 2011, Omer Asim launched his eponymous label, which has become known for its questioning of aesthetics through modern silhouettes, layered shapes, architectural tailoring penchant for multi-dimensional textures combined with primeval sartorial elements to create a sense of regressive future. Such tropes are noticeable in his Autumn/Winter 2014/15 collection, where laddered cotton (hand-woven in a loom in the Ethiopian highlands that was first used over two thousand years ago) is reworked in elegant combinations with knitted linen and silk with various hand treatments and lacquered finishes across a colour palette of black, cream and copper. 

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Overall, for Spring/Summer 2014, Reiss has invested in a tailored and sophisticated silhouette for men that is evident in the fitted sleeves of shirts and coats, in the slim-cut legs of trousers, and in the cropped outerwear. Key pieces for the season include a belted safari leather jacket and a leather backpack that conjure, simultaneously, an idea of adventure and a sense of urbane masculinity.

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Previous Serpentine Pavilions have been designed by Sou Fujimoto, Herzog & de Meuron with Ai Weiwei, Peter Zumthor, Jean Nouvel, SANAA, Frank Gehry, Olafur Eliasson, Rem Koolhaas, Souto Álvaro Siza with Eduardo de Moura, Oscar Niemeyer, Toyo Ito, Daniel Libeskind, and Zaha Hadid. Smiljan Radic’s Pavilion will be unveiled during the London Festival of Architecture 2014, and will be open to the public between 26 June and 19 October 2014.

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