Summer Exhibition 2015

Overheard in the Small Weston Room from a couple contemplating 'Remembering the Treason Trial' by South African artist William Kentridge HON RA:
'So what does it represent to you, in your mind?'
'The Tree of Life?'
'Right.' Pause. 'And…?'
'Well… there's the scale of it.'
'And there's dramatic stuff mixed up with everyday stuff, and a whole lot going on. I'm not trying to give you a hard time, I'm just trying to get you to tell me what you see…'

There is certainly 'a whole lot going on'. This year's Summer Exhibition is a riot of colour: the Wohl Central Hall has been daubed a 'rich turquoise', Gallery III a 'vivid magenta' and the Lecture Room 'sky blue'; and, as ever, there is an embarrassment of riches. It is not easy picking out three favourites from a strong field, but I would say my choices for this year (in reverse order) are:

3.  Daydreaming (Oil)
     Lucy du Sautoy

A smudge of landscape streaked with droplets of water in sharp focus, as if looking out of a train window after a shower. It is an unusual perspective for an oil painting, and the grey sky and damp-looking greens seem to lull you into a sort of rainy-day reverie.

2.  Looking South (Woodcut)
     Pine Feroda

Another landscape: this time of dark jagged peaks thrusting out of the sea against a misty pink and purple horizon. It is an intense, dramatic composition – but not brooding: I love the way the ripples and waves catch the shimmering light. The title is intriguing – looking south from where? From some Nordic fastness, or a Patagonian peak? I would later learn that Pine Feroda are a collective of five woodblock artists based in north Devon, so perhaps the work was inspired by the rugged Devon coast.

1.  Somerford Grove Adventure Playground in Tottenham (C-type print)
     Mark Neville

A boy with close-cropped fair hair leans against a counter and pulls a little moue. All around him is the chaos of a typical junior school, with kids waiting to be allowed out into the playground for break. The light that falls on him seems to accentuate his pallor; his other classmates appear to be of mixed heritage. An interesting social commentary? I would later learn that this was one of a series of portraits commissioned by the New York Times for a photo essay entitled 'Here is London', and that the scene depicted was of an after-school club!

Honourable mention to Paul Hosking for 'Mimic (Black)', a visually arresting work in and of itself, made all the more interesting by the reflection of the room within it; Sir Anish Kapoor RA for his untitled acrylic cube with mirrored sides and a row of bubbles suspended within, refreshing as an ice-cube on a summer's day; and Emily Allchurch for 'Babel London', an amusing, contemporary take on Breughel's Tower of Babel.

Summer Exhibition 2014

'I never used to like still lifes, but increasingly I find them quite pleasing.'
'Yes… nice colours. Shall we move on?'
'Shall we?'
'Let's.'

For me, this year's Summer Exhibition is not so much about still lifes as it is about landscape and portraiture – and the various techniques of printmaking. It is immediately apparent, gushes the Exhibition guide, why the Print Rooms of the Summer Exhibition are so popular. More than any of the galleries, they exemplify the Exhibition's democracy by presenting a rich survey of contemporary printmaking in all its forms. This year, Galleries I and II have been hung by artist-printmakers Professor Chris Orr MBE RA and Emma Stibbon RA. Orr observes that the Summer Exhibition offers excellent insight into emerging trends in printmaking, while Stibbons points out that prints, being generally more affordable than unique works of art, offer great opportunities for building up a wide collection.

My top three picks for this year are all prints. They are, in reverse order:

3.  Winter Hedge (Archival pigment transfer print)
     Boyd & Evans

A tree surges out of the mist in the middle of a hedge. In this muted landscape, drear and grey, I like how the bare branches seem to explode into the frosty air, lending a strange sense of dynamism to the piece – a distant promise of spring in its simple, sturdy form. As it turns out, its pendant piece 'Spring Hedge' hangs nearby, depicting the same tree triumphant in the luminous green of new foliage under a bright blue sky.

2.  Leicestershire (C-type print)
     Mitra Tabrizian

A half-demolished factory stands in the middle of a concrete courtyard wet from recent rain, its brick and tile interior exposed to the elements. Beside it stands a tall and weathered chimney stack. The colours seem faded: worn reds and smudged whites squeezed between grey ground and grey-blue sky; and the still and sullen emptiness reinforces the overall impression of desolate urban decay.

1.  O Jogo Bonito (Photograph)
     Hermès

My favourite work in this year's Exhibition is of the 'beautiful game'. Here, against a backdrop of dramatic peaks and drab apartment blocks (barely visible through the mix of sea spray and smog), is a beach full of bronzed bodies of all shapes and sizes engrossed in the game. Above their heads, as if suspended, are a flight of footballs – like a host of hovering planets, each one catching a glint of sun. I love the way the picture encapsulates what I imagine to be the crazy, creative chaos of Brazil!

Honourable mention to Ben Johnson for 'Sala de Dos Hermanas', a quietly beautiful black-and-white study of Moorish arches; Gavin Turk for 'Totem', a mesmerising image of a puff of smoke rising against a dark background (or possibly ejaculate in water, thought one wag who must have been spending too much time in the bath); and to Peter Abrahams for 'Approximate Precision – Scourers 4', with its used scourers stacked two-deep on a white surface (I thought they looked vaguely edible, but this was clearly not a sentiment shared by the lady next to me who shuddered and said, 'Ugh – I hate them, they always look "grot"!').

Some parting words of wisdom from Tom Phillips RA: 'Waste not the remains of the day'!

Summer Exhibition 2012

In this year's Summer Exhibition, some of the smaller works have been collected and hung in a 'wave' to give them 'rhythm' and 'energy'. Visitors are encouraged to follow the 'flow', and I do – although I eventually drift off on a slipstream to explore some of the larger works as well. Here are my top three picks for this year, in reverse order:

3.  TQ 31949 05471 (charcoal on Bristol board)
     Peter Marsh

Marsh's charcoal drawing depicts a street half obscured in darkness. Its houses, brooding and silent, seem derelict; yet in the centre of the piece is what appears to be a spreading tree. The curious sense of foreboding evoked by the work is reinforced by its enigmatic title – a Torquay postcode followed by an incomplete OS reference? Unlikely...

2.  Andvord Bay, Antarctica (oil on wood panel)
     Frances Walker

Walker's triptych is visually arresting, its size conveying something of the sheer scale and elemental expanse of Antarctica. In the background broods the base of a snowy mountain, its peaks reflected in the occluded surface of the icy waters in the foreground. Although the peaks disappear into cloud in part of the triptych, in another is a dazzling patch of sky.

1.  Flood (blue pencil with black and white aquacry and aluminium)
     Shirazeh Houshiary

Blue seems to be the theme this year, as I move from Walker's frozen blue-and-white landscape to Houshiary's mesmerising blue-and-grey canvas, its patterned surface lined as if with ripples. Towards the top of the work, a black inky spot appears to be dissolving – or perhaps it is meant to be a vortex appearing out of the deep. The work carries a hefty price tag of £300,000, making it perhaps the most expensive work on sale at the Exhibition.

Honourable mention to Matthew Darbyshire for his tongue-in-cheek 'Untitled Homeware No. 13', a slightly kitsch yellow flock Buddha draped in a blue Union Jack; and to Lucy Glendinning for 'Feather Child I', a fascinating (and slightly disturbing) work of lifelike sleeping child fledged in down.

Lucian Freud Portraits

'What do I ask of a painting?' Freud once mused.  'I ask it to astonish, disturb, seduce, convince.'

Freud's portraits bear testimony to all of these qualities. 

The exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery is not a memorial exhibition, as Sandy Nairne, director of the gallery, is at pains to point out. It had been planned with the artist as far back as 2006, before Freud's death aged 88 last year. Gathered together are 130 of Freud's works, from his early portraits in the 1940s and 50s through to his final canvas. The shift in styles in the late 1950s and 60s, towards his distinctive impasto realism, is particularly noticeable.

There is something about Freud's nudes that I find unsettling. 'Naked Girl Asleep II', for example, presents us with a recumbent figure in seemingly innocent slumber, but for the perspective which has us staring up her crotch; while in 'Naked Man with Rat' we find a pensive, reclining man, whose legs are splayed to bare his genitals. 

One of the best-known works in the exhibition, however, has to be 'Benefits Supervisor Sleeping' (pictured above), which fetched £17.2 million when it was sold in 2008 – then the highest price paid for a work by a living artist. The portrait is one of several that Freud painted of Sue Tilley ('Big Sue'), and Freud had this to say of her: 'She is, in her way, very feminine and, as she says, luckily she's got a sensible gene. Initially, being aware of all kinds of spectacular things to do with her size, like amazing craters and things one's never seen before, my eye was naturally drawn round to the sores and chafes made by weight and heat....'

Freud's last work, 'Portrait of the Hound', is a large unfinished canvas of David Dawson (Freud's assistant, model and friend) and his whippet Eli. Dawson, propped up on one elbow and cradling his knee with the other, gazes up at us; while a half-painted, sleek, fawn-and-white whippet lies next to him, staring mutely ahead.

Hanami

'What is wabi-sabi?' I once asked some Japanese friends.
'Wabi-sabi? It is very Japanese…'
A long pause.
'It is like Japanese tea ceremony. Or hanami (sakura viewing), or koyo (autumn leaves). These are very wabi-sabi.'

Wabi-sabi is a quintessentially Japanese aesthetic consciousness, derived from an appreciation of the impermanence of things. Wabi (侘) stands for simplicity and restraint, while sabi (寂) connotes age and desolation. Wabi-sabi is therefore an understated beauty, often found in nature, with all its imperfection and decay: fading flowers, turning leaves…

At its profoundest level, wabi-sabi is ineffable: an emotional response to transience, a sensibility to change that can only be experienced, not explained. Drawn from Zen Buddhism, it is what the Japanese call mono no aware (物の哀れ), a pathos for the passing of all things.

Naka-Meguro in Tokyo is a good place to catch the cherry blossoms. On a Sunday evening at the height of sakura season, however, the crowds are out in force, and the festive – almost boisterous – atmosphere does not lend itself to an appreciation of wabi-sabi. So I retire instead with two Japanese verses in translation, which encapsulate wabi-sabi and hanami for me:

'If cherry blossoms in their pride
Covered the far-flung mountainside
Day after day the summer through
Should we praise them as we do?'
-  Man’yoshu (Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves)
   (eighth century anthology) 

'The Spring has come and once again
The sun shines in the sky;
So gently smile the Heavens that
It almost makes me cry
When blossoms droop and die.'
-  Tomonori Ki
   Hyakunin-Isshiu (A Hundred Verses from A Hundred Poets)
   (thirteenth century anthology)

Golconda Fort

'Hast thou from the caves of Golconda, a gem
Pure as the ice-drop that froze on the mountain?'
- John Keats
  On Receiving a Curious Shell

Ah Golconda! 'Jewels of great Emperors flash in its very consonants,' reads a quote from an old guidebook to its fort and tombs. The ruins which remain today are imposing still, if somewhat less atmospheric than the other great ruins of India.

There was a time when all the diamonds in the world came from the mines around the fort, and its bazaars would have teemed with commerce centered around the glittering gems of the Deccan and beyond: diamonds, of course – but also blood-red rubies, enormous emeralds and lustrous pearls, all set against the gleam of gold.

Summer Exhibition 2010

'Fifteen grand, that pink one up there,' said the lady, pursing her lips.
'We've seen better,' said her male companion.

As ever, this year's Summer Exhibition is exhilaratingly eclectic, with something to cater for all comers and all tastes. Picking three favourites out of the thousands of entries is never easy, but here nevertheless are my choices for this year, in reverse order:

3.  Departure (archival digital print)
     Güler Ates

A veiled woman in a striking blue dress ascends a flight of white stairs, bent forward in an attitude of haste. Ates's composition is dynamic and enigmatic. Why the urgency? Where is she going? Why is she headed upstairs if she is leaving? The picture is devoid of clues, and all that we have is a glimpse of a pregnant moment, of bustle reduced to an eerie stillness.

2.  Last Snow Sixhills (etching)
     Melvyn Petterson

Petterson's monochrome etching is of a hill silhouetted in the slicing rain, with a wide muddy lane dominating much of the foreground. There is something bleak but beautiful in the wet, windswept landscape, and the tyre tracks in the mud seem to emphasise the lonely desolation of the scene.

1.  Acceptance (video installation)
     Bill Viola

It's been a while since I've encountered Viola's work but 'Acceptance', his submission for this year's Summer Exhibition, reminded me of how quietly compelling it can be. The short film, shot in black and white, depicts a naked, middle-aged woman with cropped hair stepping out of the darkness into a light space where water starts to pour over her. It is clear from her frown and silent gasps that the experience is not pleasurable. For a few moments the flow ceases, and a fleeting smile of relief spreads across her face, but the flow soon starts again and her distress returns. 'It's drenching her,' comments Ann Christopher on the piece, 'and she doesn't have much choice. But there are religious undertones: it's a kind of filmed late baptism.' There were also more sinister parallels, I thought, of shaven-headed women being sent to 'showers' against their will.

Honourable mention to David Mach for 'Silver Streak', his sculpture of a chest-thumping gorilla made from metal coat hangers, which drew appreciative cries from the younger public ('Wow cool - look at his face!'); Ruth Dupre for her glass and wood entry, 'Butchery', with its four vitreous slabs of meat oozing off the sides of a table into black, bulbous drops of putrefaction; and Chris Coekin's giclée print 'The Altogether #2' depicting four workmen in dark overalls, right hands extended in cross-handshakes while their left hands clutch their tools of trade.

Neues Grünes Gewölbe

As with the historical Green Vault, the new Green Vault contains an embarrassment of riches. Having missed the 'Moor with Emerald Slab' in the historical vault, I decide to make a beeline for Dinglinger's works.

There is no doubt that Johann Melchior Dinglinger was a jeweller and master craftsman of the highest order. His 'Golden Coffee Service' – a centrepiece in silver, gold and enamel – comprises 45 vessels encrusted with 5,500 diamonds elaborately arranged on a pyramidal étagère. The work is an exuberance of exotic shapes and colours, with intertwined snakes, salamanders and frogs decorating the coffee pot perched on the apex. Augustus was so delighted with the creation he reputedly paid 50,000 thalers for it – almost equivalent to the cost of building Moritzburg castle.

'The Throne of the Grand Mogul Aureng-Zeb' is another of Dinglinger's masterpieces. A contemporary of Augustus, Aurangzeb held the world monopoly on diamonds and had his own gold mines. According to the audioguide, Aurangzeb was 'viewed by European rulers as the quintessential oriental potentate, embodying absolute power and infinite wealth'. Occupying an area of nearly one metre square, Dinglinger's display is made up of over 130 bejewelled enamel figures, all of which can be freely moved, and over 5,000 diamonds and precious stones. Aurangzeb himself is seated on a red cushion in the centre of a golden pavillion, surveying the scene from a haughty angle. It took Dinglinger and his brothers seven years to complete the work, for which they were paid the princely sum of almost 60,000 thalers.

Other notable objets d'art in the new Green Vault include an ivory frigate by Jacob Zeller, with its delicate ivory mainsails and streaming pennants and rigging of gold wire; Dinglinger's Apis altar, with its focus on the ancient Egyptian Osiris myth of death and resurrection; and the colossal Dresden green diamond, the most valuable diamond in the entire jewel collection of the Green Vault.

Porzellansammlung

It was Böttger the failed alchemist who, together with von Tschirnhaus, would eventually succeed in producing the white porcelain so desired by Augustus the Strong, using a mixture of Colditz clay, alabaster and quartz. Europe could now manufacture the 'white gold' it had hitherto imported from the Far East and, in 1710, the Porzellan-Manufaktur Meissen started production from the security of Albrechtsburg castle.

Not that that would wholly cure Augustus of his porzellankrankheit. In the spring of 1717, the year in which Köhler and Mehlhorn would succeed in producing a formula for a cobalt underglaze blue, Augustus exchanged 600 cavalrymen for 150-odd porcelain vessels from Friedrich Wilhelm I of Prussia, including the infamous 'dragoon vases'.

In addition to these and other exquisite Chinese and Japanese pieces, the collection also houses various delightful pieces of Meissen manufacture: animal sculptures (including a couple of Kirchner rhinoceroses with horns on their backs as well as their noses, a Kändler peacock, a monkey with a snuffbox, and two Bolognese dogs, wide-eyed and snarling); delicate little figurines (the characters of the commedia dell'arte were particularly appealing to Kändler, who saw them as 'both gallant and ribald at the same time'); and large elaborate centrepieces.

Historisches Grünes Gewölbe

No more than a hundred visitors are admitted at any one time to the historical Green Vault. Behind the airlock that separates the vault from the rest of the Residenzschloß, Augustus' sumptuous treasury and personal collection of objets d'art still stands, largely intact, having survived the Allied bombing of Dresden by being spirited away to the Königstein Fortress. The collection was subsequently confiscated by the Soviet Union at the end of the war, but was restored to East Germany in 1958.

Reconstructed to reflect Pöppelmann's late Baroque layout and design, the historical Green Vault comprises nine rooms – four (each increasing in detail and complexity) leading up to the Pretiosensaal, the great hall of precious objects, and four leading back away from it:

1. the Bernsteinkabinett, which showcases the Electors' collection of amber (or 'Baltic gold'), harvested from the sea;
2. the Elfenbeinzimmer, with its exquisite collection of lathe-turned and carved ivory;
3. the Weißsilberzimmer, with its nautilus goblets, mother-of-pearl basins and serpentine objects, all within a 'brilliant vermillion' setting;
4. the Silbervergoldete Zimmer, with its collection of figurative drinking vessels in a green setting;
5. the Pretiosensaal, described by the audioguide as 'the first climax of the tour' and the largest of the rooms, formerly the privy custody of the Saxon Electors;
6. the Wappenzimmer, which once housed the automaton of a female bust known as 'the Oracle';
7. the Juwelenzimmer, described by the audioguide as the 'absolute climax' of the historical Green Vault, and housing a 'breath-taking' and 'exuberant' collection of jewels and other treasures;
8. the Bronzenzimmer; and
9. the Raum der Renaissancebronzen.

I manage to miss Dinglinger and Permoser's 'Moor with Emerald Slab', one of the main works in the collection, so a return visit is clearly in order!

Christen Købke: Danish Master of Light (A Post-Script)

"Christen Købke found his true self as well as his artistic themes in his close surroundings. He was not John Constable, nor Caspar David Friedrich, but in a strange way he was in some respects like them, just as one might find, without any real explanation, a flower growing where no-one would expect it. In Denmark, we have taken quiet pleasure in this, but since there is nothing better than to be able to share, it gives us even more enjoyment that in recent years Købke has come to occupy a place of honour in the context of the period between Napoleon and the European ideals of freedom."

– HM Queen Margrethe II of Denmark
Extract from the foreword to
'Christen Købke: Danish Master of Light' by David Jackson

Christen Købke: Danish Master of Light

The exhibition in the Sunley Room of the National Gallery is a small one, featuring just 48 of Købke's works – but then Købke was never a particularly prolific artist, nor one of great renown. By all accounts, he led a quiet and modest life which – with the exception of a trip to Italy – was rooted in and around Copenhagen, and was happiest painting the people and places he knew best (or where, in the words of the audioguide, 'bonds of love and affection tied him to his chosen motifs'). Not that his style was in any way simple or naïf; Købke's 'sophisticated handling of composition, colour and, above all, light' would, after all, subsequently distinguish him as one of the greatest painters of the Danish Golden Age.

It is Købke's 'View of Dosseringen near the Sortedam Lake looking towards Nørrebro' (pictured above) which the critics rightly alight on as one of his most arresting works, and which, for me, embodies the quiet – almost meditative – charm of Købke's art. Painted just before he departed for Italy, it depicts a 'low-key, underplayed narrative' of leave-taking or arrival, bathed in a 'static, poetic light'. There is a sense of enigma about it. 'We see no faces, read no emotions, barely sense the body language of the participants,' comments the audioguide, 'but the simplest things are rendered beautiful: the soft, radiant light; the fragile shape of the little jetty; and the humble vegetation on the banks, painted with botanical accuracy'.

J. W. Waterhouse: The Modern Pre-Raphaelite

You can't miss her ripe, pubescent pout. Here, in her manifold guises, is the Waterhouse woman. Or, rather, the Waterhouse girl – for it was the promise of womanhood that really intrigued Waterhouse. In all my years of admiring his art and aesthetic, it never occurred to me that there might be something borderline transgressive about his obsession with beautiful young women, but then I suppose I never had the benefit of various Waterhouse experts to instruct my eye.

Among the first expressions of Waterhouse's interest in adolescent females is the Martyrdom of St Eulalia, which depicts (in the words of the audioguide) 'an adolescent, semi-naked girl' who 'lies before us at a dramatically foreshortened angle'. As Peter Trippi, art historian and Waterhouse biographer, explains, St Eulalia was Waterhouse's 'breakthrough picture'. It was not only large and much noticed at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition (resulting in Waterhouse being elected as an associate of the Royal Academy - although presumably not for presenting us with 'what might be considered an eroticised body for our viewing pleasure'), but it also 'summarised in many ways his desire to take an obscure subject and make it absolutely unforgettable'.

It is, however, in St Cecelia (pictured above) that, according to Robert Upstone, curator of modern British art at the Tate, we get the 'full fulfilment' of the Waterhouse girl. 'There is a subtle eroticism to the way in which we look at this very beautiful woman who is sleeping. We are allowed to gaze upon her because she cannot see us looking at her, but there is also something unattainable about her. She is other-worldly, she is in a strange dreaming state, but she also hovers in this ambiguous state between childhood and adolescence and full adulthood.'

In terms of popularity, however, both are trumped by the Lady of Shalott – who is neither semi-naked nor somnolent - and the Tate apparently sells more postcards of this than of any other painting in its collection.

Kurta Carousel at the Art Oasis

I came across Zain Mustafa's 'Carousel' quite unexpectedly at the Art Oasis at the Wafi in Dubai this afternoon. At first glance, it wasn't particularly exciting: eighteen plain white kurtas, each emblazoned with a word from Allama Iqbal's poem from the Bang-e-Dara (Call of the Marching Bell). The transliteration from the Urdu read, 'Hazaroon saal nargis apni bey noori ray rothi hay, Bari mushkil say hotha hay chaman mein deedawar paida'. This was accompanied by a rather cryptic English translation which read, 'For thousands of years Narcissus weeps at her ugliness. It is with great difficulty that someone is born in the garden (of Eden) with eyes'. What was intriguing was the story behind each kurta, written in English in a neat cursive hand on a large yellow label attached to each garment. Difficult to tell if these were true or simply made up – they were certainly plausible enough to be affecting.

A random selection:

"Name: Muna
Age: 22 years old
Nationality: Emirati
Sex: Female
Recent graduate in architecture. Just married. Killed in a fatal car crash on Sheikh Zayed Road – was not her fault. Kurta was bought for her by her brother. Found in car at crash scene. Muna had dreams of becoming an internationally acclaimed architect."

"Name: Antonio
Age: 38 years old
Nationality: Spanish
Sex: Male
Financial analyst at the DIFC (Dubai International Financial Centre). Collector of ethnic items of clothing. As part of his collection, a kurta was hanging over his bed on his bedroom wall as a piece of art in his villa in the Meadows. During the rains last January, his house leaked, flooding his bedroom. Much to his sadness, he had to throw away the kurta."

"Name: Michiko
Age: 18 years old
Nationality: Japanese
Sex: Female
Fashion photographer's assistant. Travelling with a well-known international fashion photographer in her first time out of Japan. She was on a yacht for an editorial photo shoot wearing her kurta as a fashion statement. A sharp turn of the yacht and turbulent waters caused her to fall off and drown. Her kurta was found floating."

"Name: Luke
Age: 35 years old
Nationality: Australian
Sex: Male
Lived in Dubai for six years with his wife and two kids. Deported along with family for indecent exposure on the beach. Accidentally picked up someone else's shopping bag with kurtas at the mall. Kurta found in his home being used as a cleaning rag."

Summer Exhibition 2009

'What a load of tat!' grumbled an old curmudgeon a little too loudly.
On display, of course, was the usual mixed bag of works: some witty, some serious; some cheery, some bleak; some executed with great skill and panache, and others, well, less evidently so. If there is one thing about the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, it's that it caters to every taste!

Here are my top three favourites from this year's exhibition, in reverse order:

3.  Bird 2 (photograph)
     Elizabeth Zeschin

Zeschin's work is a sepia photograph of a dead sparrow, head convulsed to one side, little claws curled, and wings half-splayed. Its feathers are beautiful still, their fine, intricate structure clearly visible - a small but potent reminder that there is sometimes a strange and solemn sweetness in death.

2.  Sunday Morning (oil on board)
     Marion Pritchard

Pritchard's 'Sunday Morning' is a quiet, intimate picture of two men on a sofa in a simple living room, heads buried in the paper (one reading the main news section of the Observer, and the other the sports). There is a delightful domesticity about the scene. The two are casually dressed, and the sunlight that spills in from the window conveys a sense of warmth and laziness. Who are they? Were they brothers? Lovers? Father and son? There are no clues - it doesn't matter. Nor is there any sense of what else the day might bring. All that matters is that moment of shared repose. Two men reading silently in the morning sunshine - a small, mundane moment rendered sublime by the artist.

1.  Saint Bartholomew, Exquisite Pain (silver)
     Damien Hirst

The highlight and undisputed masterpiece of this year's exhibition, for me, was Hirst's gleaming silver statue of St Bartholomew, scalpel upraised in triumph and flayed skin draped like a trophy over his right arm. In his left hand is a large and fearsome pair of scissors, and at his feet lie an array of surgical implements. Macabre yet compelling, the almost life-sized sculpture (in the words of the display note) 'exposes the full anatomical complexity of the figure's muscular structure'.

Honourable mention to Meg Dutton for her etching and watercolour, 'Mosques', a vibrant jumble of domes and arches and latticed windows strongly evocative of the exotic east; and to Natalia Calvocoressi for her untitled photograph of a child in a red dress in a muted room scattered with dead leaves, staring up with intriguing intensity at the photographer.