What a rupture: the Summer Exhibition, more than 250 years old, moved to autumn and winter. But within the show is a more significant shift. Organised by video-art twins Jane and Louise Wilson, it has the most distinctive opening to a summer show I can remember.
The Wilsons judiciously offered the opening rooms to the artist Isaac Julien, whose homage to Okwui Enwezor, the Nigerian curator who died last year, evokes Enwezor’s dismantling of systemic racial biases as a clarion call for this moment — every artist in these first two rooms is black.
There’s a dark yet shimmering El Anatsui wall-hanging, a luminous Frank Bowling canvas, a vigorous and energetic abstract by Oscar Murillo. Next door, a huge, collage-painting by Njideka Akunyili Crosby, a stunning triptych by Chris Ofili, and sinuous, magical sculptures by Wangechi Mutu. It’s uplifting, even moving, to see this bastion of the art establishment grappling with its historical imbalances. But this should be a manifesto, not a one-off.
Normal service is resumed elsehwere — amateurs and professionals, inspirational and execrable art, cheek-by-jowl. A sculpture room curated by Richard Deacon wisely embraces the chaos, but most of the displays are jarring and ropey.
Yet, in our fraught, uncertain present, I found the usually infuriating hallmarks of every Summer Exhibition — tame Venice paintings, polite abstracts, middling portraits — oddly comforting.
October 6 to January 3, 2021
