The future of the RA
Norman Rosenthal
For the general public, the Royal Academy is the country's foremost art exhibiting institution. In the eyes of most professional persons and informed amateurs it is somewhat less than that, in spite of its fairly consistently successful winter exhibitions which include the current crowd-pulling Pompeii display, but there is no reason why it should not become so. The RA is of course more than just an exhibiting body. It has numerous other functions, the most important being the running of an art school from its own resources and without state subsidy. The school selects its own students and until now charges neither them, local authorities nor the DES any fees. For the RA, which was founded in 1768 when a small group of twenty-two artists successfully solicited for a Royal Charter and thus from the beginning became automatically an establishment quasi-national institution, has always jealously guarded its independence by refusing any outside subsidy. In the journalistic cliché of today the RA has studiously, and some might say heroically, avoided becoming 'a drain on the nation's resources.' Nonetheless, the original memorandum presented by those twenty-two artists to George III in November 1768 did bear in mind the eventuality of subsidy. 'We apprehend that the profits arising from the last of these institutions [the annual exhibition] will fully answer all the expenses of the first [the school], we even flatter ourselves they will be more than necessary for that purpose, and that we shall be enabled annually to distribute somewhat in use/id charities. Your Majesty's avowed patronage and protection is, therefore all that we humbly sue for; but should we be disappointed in our expectations, and find that the profits of the Society are insufficient to defray its expenses, we humbly hope that your Majesty will not deem that
espense -ill applied which, may be found necessary to support so useful an institution.'
After more than 200 years of being 'so useful an institution,' it is impossible to think away the RA, but it must be clear to anyone interested in its continuity, that it is now caught in an acute and doubly awkward predicament from which it must and can extricate itself. First, the RA is in considerable financial difficulty. To meet at least part of its deficit, it is proposing from next year to break with tradition and charge fees to its students. There will also be an increased commission of 15 per cent from sales at the summer exhibition. A fundraising society of 'Friends' is being set up, and business sponsorship actively sought. But the dominant economic problem for the RA as an exhibiting organisation is that it is grossly under-used and under-developed. Like proverbial British industry, it is operating to everyone's detriment far below its maximum capacity.
Because of the overwhelming superiority that such beautiful galleries with natural top light alone possess, paintings especially, but also sculptures, are seen at Burlington House to very great advantage in comparison with the concrete bunker that is the less than new Hayward Gallery, for instance. Just as importantly, they are situated in as prestigious and convenient a site as any in London—giving them a head start over any exhibitions at the really quite hard to reach Tate and Hayward Galleries. Burlington House may be compared in this respect with the Grand Palais in Paris. Indeed, it is from the activities of the Grand Palais, which mounts with astonishing efficiency and style some six or more spectacular art exhibitions each year in comparison with the RA's one or two winter shows that a major clue might be found for the future. The Grand Palais is a vital forum for France and her statesupported cultural legitimacy, of which she is so much more acutely aware than we are of ours. The RA could easily be such a forum for London and ourselves.
However, as an institution run by artists the RA has always seen its primary role as providing a dignified place where newlycreated work can be exhibited. The wellthought-out words of the founders are worth quoting again. The annual exhibition was to be 'open to all artists of distinguished merit, where they may offer their performances to public inspection, and acquire that degree of reputation and encouragement which they shall he deemed to deserve.' For all the criticism—much of it justified—that is directed against the mammoth summer exhibitions, they do provide artists with a market where they can sell work direct to the public. They also provide a large, confused view of mostly traditional art activity that has taken place during the year.
But the summer exhibitions alone have not allowed the laudable aims of the founders to be fully realised. Even during the RA's first hundred years, when the best that was being done in the country was without doubt being shown, catalogues and visual documents present a pretty confused picture as artists, critics and a large public argued the merits of history painting over genre, landscape over portraiture, not to mention finer points of style and skill. However, as we head towards the end of the twentieth century with increasing fragmentations and specialisations which affect all aspects of life, certainly not excluding the visual arts, it must be clear that the aims of the founders can only be carried out if the annual
summer exhibition is not only improved upon but supplemented by a Carefully planned programme of contemporary art, both frofn this country and from abroad. The increasing internationalism of the language of art, though it allows any number of local and personal differences, is something that is denied only at the risk of burying critical faculties in the sand. If successful, such a programme could slowly win back to the RA the support of many significant artists, who for their own legitimate reasons have turned their backs in this century on what was meant to be their own platform.
Of course, other exhibitions are mounted. In addition to the winter shows, smaller and often memorable events have taken place both in the main exhibition rooms and in the smaller Diploma Galleries. But it is also true that for considerable periods many of the RA spaces are closed and any exhibitions which supplement the summer show seem sporadic and haphazard—and do not therefore always attract the public in as large numbers as they might otherwise.
So what should be done? The RA must be given secure financial backing. After 200 years, the RA has finally reached the point where, whatever efforts it makes—including those mentioned above or even selling some of its own treasures—it can no more be expected to operate without public funding support than the Royal Opera or the National Theatre and it is as important and as national an institution as those are. It seems from reports that the Government, represented by the Minister for the Arts, Lord Donaldson, is extremely loath to consider the RA in this light and is unlikely to grant it special funds. The Arts Council feels that any re-allocation of its currently static funds should be directed to the provinces.
What is clear, is that the public as a whole looks to national institutions to set standards and, push forward frontiers. These can only be set through open discussion on numerous independent and wellrun platforms. The RA should be properly financed, adequately staffed and above all else responsibly trusteed by its artist members to be the major platform both for the serious discussion and presentation of new art and for the historical exhibitions for which it is so well suited. Neither the Tate Gallery nor the Arts Council need have anything to fear: there should be weighty and independent alternatives at the RA to the official exhibition policies of the Arts Council and the Tate. The Institute of Contemporary Art is now utterly defunct and should be closed down once and for all. However startling the proposal, there iS no reason why the RA should not take upon itself that programmatic role and become the major forum for new art again—as it was in its first hundred years. This will not happen overnight, but with the right spirit and strategy the academicians themselves, the community of artists and the RA Patrons, both public and private, could think through its real potential, now so unrealised, for our cultural well-being.
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