RA Magazine Blog Listing

Among the big hits at last year’s Venice Biennale was the Polish pavilion, featuring Israeli Yael Bartana’s ambitious film trilogy about the fictional Jewish Renaissance Movement in Poland, calling for the return of 3.3m Jewish people to their forefathers’ homeland.

Tracey Emin RA’s returns home to Margate from Saturday with a major exhibition at Turner Contemporary.

Several standout shows, Lucian Freud at the National Portrait Gallery, Alighiero Boetti at the Tate Modern and Louise Bourgeois at the Freud Museum, close this week. Plus, ex-RA Schools student Rachael Champion has organised an afternoon of activities at the Camden Arts Centre and Damien Hirst and Bruce Nauman go on show at the White Cube.

The first exhibition to focus solely on Bridget Riley’s seminal black-and-white works from the early 1960s is presented across two West End galleries until mid-July: Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert in St James’s and Karsten Schubert in Soho’s Golden Square.

On Saturday 12 May, in unexpected sunshine, Lismore Castle Arts opened its annual summer international exhibition. Dotted around the beautiful formal gardens and displayed in the galleries, until 30 September, are large-scale sculptures by Swiss sculptor Hans Josephsohn.

The largest public gallery in London has just got larger. The Photographers’ Gallery opens its doors to the public again this Saturday in its Ramillies Street home – around the corner from Oxford Circus – after a major renovation project by acclaimed Irish architects O’Donnell + Tuomey that includes a two-storey extension.

As the Summer Exhibition gets underway, the RA truly starts to feel like an Academy. Artists and architects roam the galleries discussing, debating and hanging art – both their own and that of others – as they set about the herculean task of hanging well over 1,000 works (selected from over 10,000, in a process shown above) in a matter of weeks.

In this week's wrapup: Don't miss Mondrian║Nicholson: In Parallel at the Courtauld; art institutions across the country open their doors for the Museums at Night festival; Stratford Underground station is brightened up by Who is Community? and The Triumph of Pleasure opens at the Foundling Museum.

The representations in 'Galápagos', a new group exhibition at the Bluecoat in Liverpool, presents a more complex picture of the archipelago than the images we are most familiar with.

Estimated to fetch £1m-1.5m (over £100,000 per centimetre) this long lost imperial seal of the Qianlong Emperor looks set to be the star lot of Bonhams Asian art sale this week.

There's still time to catch an exhibition of recent work by newly elected Royal Academician Terry Setch at Flowers Gallery in Cork Street this week.

Royal Academician Richard Deacon challenges the idea that ‘the whole is more the sum of its parts’ in an exhibition of recent sculptures at the Lisson Gallery. The geometric constructions on view are all comprised of a series of smaller polygonal components that assert their integrity with each structure.

The Bowes Museum, a grand nineteenth-century chateau in the historic Durham market town of Barnard Castle, is the British venue for a touring exhibition of photography that contextualises the famously turbulent relationship of painters Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera with the social and political changes of their native Mexico.

RA Magazine featured British painter Lynette Yiadom-Boakye last year in an article that caught up with graduates of the RA Schools. The London-born artist, who left the Schools in 2003, has a solo show on view until 13 May at Chisenhale Gallery, a space in the east of the city which has built an international reputation over 30 years for its enlightened contemporary art programme.

In this week's wrapup: Don't miss Jeremy Deller and David Shrigley at the Hayward; last chance to catch Blek le Rat's pioneering street art at Opera Gallery; Flights of Fancy in Cheshire's Tatton Park; two art fairs in London and an exhibition of automatic drawing.

A major exhibition of Leonardo's anatomical drawings, Picasso's Vollard Suite at the British Museum, last chance to see vintage photography of ancient ruins at James Hyman Gallery and exhibitions featuring Royal Academicians Anne Desmet and Philip Sutton are all in this week's wrap-up.

RA Schools’ students tend to see their three years of postgraduate study as a period to develop their work away from the glare of galleries and critics. But London-born artist Eddie Peake (b. 1981) has combined his time so far on the course with high-profile forays into the hyped-up wider art world.

A Pop Art conference at the ICA; Juan Muñoz at Frith Street Gallery; Glasgow's International Festival of Visual Art; last chance to see Joan Mitchell at Hauser & Wirth and a new exhibition at the National Maritime Museum celebrates Power, Pageantry and the Thames.

'Out of Focus' is the first survey exhibition of photography that the Saatchi Gallery has presented since 'I Am a Camera' (2001), a show that was well-received by critics but caused distracting headlines for its presentation of pictures by Tierney Gearon featuring her two young children in the nude (public complaints caused the police to visit the gallery).

Edmund de Waal's bestselling family memoir The Hare with the Amber Eyes told the story of the Ephrussi banking dynasty's fortunes throughout 19th and 20th century Europe, from fabulous wealth and cultural prestige to Nazi persecution and the dispersal of the family across three continents. It is a book in which family, belonging and the meaning of collecting are all central themes; inspired by De...

Four recent works by the Melbourne-born, British-based artist Ron Mueck (pronounced ‘Mew-eck’) are on view for a month at Hauser & Wirth on Saville Row.

A Bond Street art stroll, John Piper at Dorchester Abbey, Stan Douglas at Victoria Miro, Giuseppe Cavalli at the Estorick Collection and Marcus Coates's film installation at Elephant & Castle.

Howard Hodgkin’s obsession with Indian art of the Mughal period (c.1560–1858) predates his career as a painter – he acquired his first Mughal work while still in short trousers, aged fourteen. Today his collection of approximately 115 paintings is considered one of the finest of its kind in private hands. This Sunday is the last opportunity to see the collection in its entirety, when its presentation...

‘The Scream’ by Edvard Munch is one of the world’s most iconic paintings - will it become the world’s most expensive, when it is sold at Sotheby’s New York on 2 May? When I went to view it at Sotheby’s this week, it certainly exceeded all expectations.

In the second part of our focus on new prints from RA Editions, RA Schools graduate Liane Lang discusses her etching 'Europe (Albert Memorial)'.

In the first video of a two-part series on RA Editions, Stephen Chambers RA discusses the inspiration behind his work 'Double St. Joan' and the process of realising it in print.

David Mach RA's current installation in Southwark Cathedral, 'Die Harder', was first shown in 'Precious Light' and the 20-foot crucifixion is on display until Good Friday.

Caro at Chatsworth is the first exhibition dedicated to the work of a single artist to take place in the gardens of Chatsworth House. Featuring 15 sculptures by Sir Anthony Caro RA that span a 40-year period, the exhibition is sited around the Chatsworth canal pond with its dramatic Emperor Fountain.

Forget Spring - Summer is definitely in the air at the RA. As London basks in an unseasonal warm spell, how appropriate that the first Summer Exhibition entries have started to arrive.

It did not surprise me that on the morning after the private view of Prunella Clough's exhibition at Austin Desmond, a queue of people had already collected outside the gallery. Clough’s exhibitions at Kettle’s Yard (1999) and Tate Britain (2007) were similarly inundated by unexpected numbers of this modest artist’s audience, while her funeral service in 2000 was a testament to a singular reputation...

Emma Crichton-Miller explores the images of childhood, from photography to works by Gainsborough and Picasso, that will be on display at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery in 'Children's Lives'.

As the RA's Premiums exhibition draws to a close (tomorrow is your last chance to see work by these second-year postgraduate students in the RA Schools), here are three more interviews with this year's exhibiting artists.

The RA's new exhibition 'Johan Zoffany RA: Society Observed' opens to the public tomorrow. Following on from our earlier video on Zoffany's 'The Tribuna of the Uffizi', here's curator Martin Postle on the story behind the exhibition's poster image - 'The Sharp Family'.

The Royal Academy's annual Premiums exhibition gives the public a chance to see the work of RA Schools students at an interim point in their three-year postgraduate studies.

'Johan Zoffany RA: Society Observed' opens to the public this Saturday, 10 March. To whet your appetite, here's a fascinating introduction to what is arguably Zoffany's best painting - 'The Tribuna of the Uffizi' - by exhibition co-curator Martin Postle.

Bad boy behaviour, the whiff of scandal, weird sexual antics. No, it’s not ‘Sensation’, it’s Johan Zoffany RA, whose colourful life (1733–1810) and art demonstrate that the Georgian age was not always gracious and the path to artistic success never did run smooth.

Transatlantic dealers and gallerists Eykyn Maclean have launched their new London space with an exhibition of Cy Twombly works from the collection of Ileana Sonnabend.

In 1952, a group of eight young British sculptors burst onto the international scene at the XXVI Venice Biennale. The art historian Herbert Read coined the phrase 'the geometry of fear' to describe the work of this new generation, whose angular, spiky works seemed a deliberate departure from the monumental and rounded organic forms of earlier British sculptors such as Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth...

The coming week is your last chance to see a retrospective of work by Frederick Gore RA (1913-2009) at Richmond Hill Gallery, highlights of which include a number of Gore's classic landscapes of loactions including Greece, Majorca and France.

Visitors to David Hockney’s RA show have marvelled at his latest innovations in drawing and inventive use of technology. As 147 of his works on paper go on sale at Christie’s this week, the RA Magazine Blog explores the artist’s enduring exploration of new ways to draw.

As Lucian Freud's etchings go under the hammer at Christie's this week, RA Magazine Blog speaks to the artist's long-time master printmaker.

David Hockney RA's recent East Yorkshire landscapes play the starring role in his forthcoming show at the RA. Here, the exhibition's co-curator, Edith Devaney, explains what is special about this part of the country and how the artist's return to his roots shaped his artistic practice.

The new exhibition at the Henry Moore Institute, 'United Enemies', explores the extraordinary period of adventure and liberation in sculpture during the 1960s and 1970s, as Richard Cork explains.

This exhibition at Pallant House, the first for nearly 25 years, is a timely reminder of the extraordinary nature of Edward Burra’s art.

The RA's major exhibition 'David Hockney RA: A Bigger Picture' is only weeks away and the exhibition's catalogue is currently in production. In the meantime, these two new Hockney books are hot off the press just in time for Christmas (and would make perfect stocking fillers).

Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788) loved to paint the landscape: he would sketch the Suffolk countryside, the skies with their fluffy white cumulous clouds, and the cattle and farmhands in the fields.

The American glass artist Dale Chihuly is well known in the UK, not least for his spectacular 27-foot chandelier that graces the front hall of the Victoria & Albert Museum. It was created on the occasion of his 2001 exhibition 'Chihuly at the V&A', which was followed in 2005 by a large site-specific installation at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

Christopher Le Brun was last night elected President of the Royal Academy. He succeeds Sir Nicholas Grimshaw PPRA who has stepped down after seven years in office.

There is an interesting split in Humphrey Ocean RA: he often wears bright colours – a dash of red or orange – and has an eternally cheerful, vivacious and optimistic disposition, yet he frequently paints grey scenes of post-war suburban buildings many people would overlook as, well, dull. This is particularly evident in his current exhibition in the glorious medieval chapel and buildings of Jesus...

To celebrate the forthcoming exhibition 'David Hockney RA: A Bigger Picture' (21 January - 9 April 2012) we've reproduced a selection of articles on David Hockney RA from the last 20 years of RA Magazine.

Listen to audio clips from our interview with Antony Gormley RA about his exhibition at the Hermitage.

Anthony Francis, an alumnus of the RA Schools, combines science and art on canvas by mixing silicone and oil paint. His new paintings form the show ‘Looking Glass Land’ at Sarah Myerscough Fine Art. The exhibition is a sea of colour. His works are bold, brightly-coloured, abstract phenomena, some of his canvases are flat, while others are built up into 3D relief.

Adrian Berg RA, who was elected to the Royal Academy in 1992, is recalled by his friend and fellow Academician Paul Huxley RA

Spring will come early to the Royal Academy, in the form of David Hockney RA’s monumental Yorkshire landscape The Arrival of Spring. And what a glorious spring it is.

The RA's Architecture Curator on the story behind The Future Memory Pavilion, Singapore (18 October – 19 November 2011)

Phyllida Barlow was recently elected a Royal Academician. Tomorrow (22 October) is your last chance to see her exhibition 'RIG' at Hauser & Wirth Piccadilly.

Collaged graph paper, ink and pigment floated on glass, coloured masking tape, embroidered wool, and several videos, are just some of the great variety of media – as well as of course the humble pencil on paper – that make up the 73 drawings shortlisted for the prestigious Jerwood Drawing Prize, on show until 30 October at the Jerwood Space near Tate Modern.

Small but perfectly formed, The Pavilion of Art and Design is instant gratification for the eyes. A select group of just over 50 galleries, mainly from continental Europe, show twentieth-century art and design in a tent pavilion in London's Berkeley Square. The atmosphere is calm, comfortable and uncrowded, made for careful looking. And the stands are designed to allow you to imagine yourself living...

Frieze Art Fair under a big white tent in Regent's Park is London's art circus, where art meets commerce and crowds throng to see the spectacle of it all. Click here for more Frieze week coverage

John Constable's The Leaping Horse is the latest work to star in the 'Masterpiece a Month' exhibition, celebrating 200 years of the Dulwich Picture Gallery.

The art world descends on London next week for Frieze Art Fair (13-16 October), the annual contemporary art jamboree that will see 170 galleries from around the world represented in a vast temporary pavilion in Regent’s Park.

Grayson Perry RA's exhibition at the British Museum opens today. The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman features objects chosen by Perry from the museum's collection, alongside new works by the artist that include drawings, embroidered wall hangings and the ceramics for which he is best known.

Browse and Darby, just around the corner from the Royal Academy, has put on an exhibition of Degas drawings and bronzes to coincide with 'Degas and the Ballet: Picturing Movement'. We visited with the RA's Degas curator, Ann Dumas, who selected some of her favourite works in the show.

When Jennifer Copley-May saw the summer issue of RA Magazine she did a double take: ‘Good Lord,’ she said, ‘that’s my aunt!" Gazing out from the cover was the unmistakable face of Jennifer's aunt, Juliet Kepes.

In the recent issue of RA Magazine we explored the abundance of exhibitions opening in Paris this Autumn. We also recommend two additional exhibitions opening in Europe this season, 'Botticelli and the Bonfire of the Vanities' in Florence and the Nahmad art dealing dynasty’s collection of modern masters in Zurich

What does a dancer make of Degas? Former prima ballerina Darcey Bussell CBE has visited the RA's 'Degas and the Ballet: Picturing Movement'. Here, she discusses the artist's special understanding of dance technique and picks out some of her favourite works in the exhibition.

Kate Goodwin, the RA's Architecture Curator, reflects on a recent trip to Singapore for a joint event with the British Council

If the words ‘chocolate box’ spring to mind when you see Degas’ ballerinas, then think again. Because, argues Ann Dumas, co-curator of Degas and the Ballet: Picturing Movement, ‘Degas was one of the most radical, experimental artists of his day, fearlessly pushing beyond accepted boundaries in both subject and technique, and embracing the technological discoveries of the exciting age in which he...

We're posting the latest RA Magazine 'Out to lunch' feature here so we can show you the photos of the meal Eileen Cooper RA and RA Magazine Editor Sarah Greenberg shared.

Following on from this month's RA Magazine tributes to John Hoyland RA, who died on 31 July, Anthony Caro RA shares his memories.

In the latest issue of the RA Magazine, Edmund Fawcett takes us on a tour around Southern California to discover the highlights of 'Pacific Standard Time: Art in LA, 1945-1980'. The map below guides you around his picks of the participating venues.

As a tribute to John Hoyland RA, who died on 31 July, we're posting the conversation between Hoyland and Damien Hirst that appeared in the Autumn 2009 issue of RA Magazine (portrait by Jillian Edelstein). An obituary by Ian Ritchie RA will appear in the Autumn issue of RA Magazine, published 1 September 2011.

London Underground has unveiled the first of a series of artworks for Acts of Kindness, an art project by Michael Landy RA.

With the exception of the annual Schools Show, the RA Schools studios and workshop spaces are generally hidden from public view. This week, a group of RA patrons and Friends Ambassador Emilia Fox had a sneak peak into the world of the Schools in a behind-the-scenes printmaking workshop

Frank Bowling RA's current exhibition in the Tennant Gallery, Journeyings: Recent Works on Paper, coincides with the publication of a new book about Bowling's art by the critic Mel Gooding and published by the RA.

Anish Kapoor RA has been awarded the Praemium Imperiale award for outstanding contribution to sculpture. The imperial family of Japan, on behalf of the Japan Art Association, are presenting Kapoor with £115,000 (15 million yen), a diploma and a medal for his achievements in October.

Victoria Miro gallery in Hoxton has put on two outstanding shows of women artists, both remarkably different to one another. Japanese artist, Yayoi Kusama, creates over the top spotty sculptures, which provide an interesting contrast to Alice Neel’s thoughtful portraiture.

Running alongside the Summer Exhibition, the RA’s A-level Summer Exhibition Online provides a showcase for talented young artists of the future. Now in its fifth year, the current exhibition attracted over 900 submissions from students across the UK.

For ten days each year, the RA Schools Show sees the studios of the Royal Academy Schools transformed into stunning gallery spaces that showcase the work of the graduating class. We spoke to four of the students about their work and what it's like to study at the Schools.

Suffolk is not known as a contemporary art hot spot. But this year, a new exhibition has been set up in conjunction with the Aldeburgh Music Festival at the Snape Maltings site. Entitled ‘SNAP’, the show includes 12 contemporary artists. but is only on view up to and including this Sunday, 26 June, the end of the second week of the music festival. Luckily though, not all of the art will be disappearing...

Sotheby’s public view of top lots from its summer sales has some real gems. Whether or not you are going to bid for them, it is worth popping into the showrooms to take a look - it may be your last chance to see these fabulous works before they vanish into private collections.

It’s a strange object, to be sure. Is it some kind of warped industrial shed? In a way, yes. It’s Zaha Hadid’s Riverside Museum in Glasgow, the city’s new £74m museum of transport. Built in the postindustrial area of Clydebank at the point where the River Kelvin flows into the Clyde, it is a giant, fluid zigzag of a building.

The word masterpiece is being tossed around the art world with abandon these days, with Christie’s calling the public show of its top lots ‘Masterpieces’ and a major London art fair called ‘Masterpiece’ opening at the end of this month. Is this hyperbole, or are there any works worthy of the name? I went along to the Christie’s view in their King Street headquarters to find out.

The REcreative website, launched today by the Louis Vuitton Young Arts Project, aims to give young people an online arts community where they can share their work, watch interviews with leading artists and get behind-the-scenes insights on careers in the art world.

Axel Vervoordt's last two exhibitions at Palazzo Fortuny during the Biennale have become legendary for their beauty and, especially, the way they mix ancient and modern art, known and unknown artists, artefacts and masterpieces.

The Biennale sprawls outside of its original pavilion gardens – the Giardini – and takes over the city, which is part of the fun. I spent Wednesday looking at some of the pavilions outside the Giardini and seeing the Arsenale.

The week before the Summer Exhibition opens its doors to the public is a busy time at the Royal Academy. The first official event in a week rich with traditions old and new is Non-Members Varnishing Day, a uniquely colourful and festive occasion.

If my tour of the Giardini of the Biennale, is anything to go by, mazes are a big theme this year. Here are a few:

A vaporetto strike on the first day of the Venice Biennale does not bode well, especially when it begins at midnight and you're staying on an island that can only be accessed by boat.

We're posting the latest RA Magazine 'Out to lunch' feature here so we can show you the photos of the delicious food that architect Piers Gough RA and I enjoyed on our visit to NOPI.

David Chipperfield RA's new Hepworth Wakefield Museum is a triumph. From the outside, the jagged grey granite building perched above the River Calder looks stunning, even if its uncompromising modernity strikes a slightly forbidding note.

Visitors to the Royal Academy this week will have noticed a striking addition to the Annenberg Courtyard. Specially created for the Summer Exhibition, 'Coloring Book' by Jeff Koons Hon RA consists of highly reflective stainless steel with a surface decoration of brightly coloured swirls, and was unwrapped over the course of several hours early on Sunday.

Last weekend's opening of Turner Contemporary saw a reported 15,000 visitors flock to the stunning new Margate art gallery designed by David Chipperfield RA. The gallery's first exhibition, 'Revealed: Turner Contemporary Opens', features work by six contemporary artists, four of whom created new work for the occasion, inspired - like the gallery's namesake JMW Turner - by the scenery of the North...

The Royal Academy's current Tennant Gallery exhibition, 'Ivor Abrahams: Mystery and Imagination' brings together the artist's 'Edgar Allan Poe' and 'Edmund Burke' print portfolios from the 1970s. Poe in particular has captured the imagination of generatons of artists. In the film below, Abrahams explains how Poe's richly metaphoric writings - a precursor to the symbolist movement - inspired his...

It's an exciting time at the Royal Academy this week as entries arrive for the Summer Exhibition, the world's largest open-submission contemporary art exhibition. In the video below, some of this year's entrants tell us about their work, why they've decided to enter and what it would mean to them to be selected for the show.

Turner Prize winner Grayson Perry is the latest artist to be elected to the ranks of the Royal Academicians. Perry was elected in the category of Printmaking at a recent RA General Assembly.

In the film below, the curators of 'Watteau: The Drawings', Pierre Rosenberg and Louis-Antoine Prat, describe Watteau's masterful 'trois crayons' drawing technique that characterises many of the works in the exhibition.

RA Magazine Editor Sarah Greenberg looks around the world to select her favourite exhibitions and new museums this Spring.

Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684-1721) has long been considered an art-historical man of mystery. Even his friends and contemporary biographers complained that they barely knew him. Indeed Watteau’s art and life remain as elusive as the figures in his drawings, which are about to go on display at the RA in the first major exhibition of these works in Britain.

'Masterworks: Architecture at the Royal Academy' is on until 13 March in the John Madejski Fine Rooms. In the video below, curator Neil Bingham introduces the exhibition and covers some of the highlights of this survey of the Royal Academy's collection of drawings and models by celebrated British architects.

We're reporting on each of the events in the RA's free salon series for GSK Contemporary - Aware. Tonight the event saw us step into the world of secrets, stories and social history hidden within our own wardrobes and those of others.

In tonight's event Hilary Rose, Caterina Radvan and Nigel Hartley explored the psychology of fashion in relation to illness and how, after death, the protective and comforting aspects of clothing are no longer essential, but their symbolic values may remain.

Emma Crichton-Miller and Peter Murray give us the low-down on the best from the UK's crop of Spring exhibitions.

We're reporting on each of the events in the RA's free salon series for GSK Contemporary - Aware. Tonight, Helen Storey and Professor Tony Ryan tell us how they’re changing the landscape of the fashion industry, why revolution won’t work and how the very clothes you wear could one day help mop up environmental pollution.

Each year the Premiums exhibition gives the public a chance to see the work of RA Schools students at an interim point in their three-year postgraduate studies. The exhibition reflects the diversity of practice at the Schools and this year is no exception; with painting, sculpture, video and photography all represented. We spoke to three of the students about their work, and discovered some interesting...

For the fifth in the series of salons Helen Palmer (WGSN), Martin Raymond and Chris Sanderson (The Future Laboratory), and Suzanne Lee (University of the Arts, London) offer us a tantalising glimpse into the world of fashion forecasting.

We're reporting on each of the events in the RA's free salon series for GSK Contemporary - Aware. From X Factor winner Matt Cardle's biceps to Lady Gaga and the art of pastiche, tonight's conversation asked how identities are constructed and performed through fashion. Key themes included celebrity, psychology and the history of fancy dress.

The politics of tartan, whether knitting is cool, the unravelling of personal history and the fallacy of authenticity were all strands woven together in tonight's discussion. Participants include artist Yinka Shonibare, Carol Tulloch (Victoria & Albert Museum), Dr. Jonathan Faiers (Central St. Martins) and artist Freddie Robins

We're reporting on each of the events in the RA's free salon series for GSK Contemporary - Aware. Second in the series is Storeytellers of Fashion. Participants include blogger Susie Lau, set designer Hattie Spice, Editor-in-chief Perry Curties (125 Magazine) and Dr. Agnès Rocamora (London College of Fashion).

We're reporting on each of the events in the RA's free salon series for GSK Contemporary - Aware. First up: The Artist's Robe: Adornment and Identity. Participants include Artist Grayson Perry, Professor Reina Lewis (London College of Fashion) and Dr. Emma Tarlo (Goldsmiths)

The incongruous sight of a dry stone wall shed taking shape in the Royal Academy's classical courtyard has had visitors scratching their heads in recent weeks.

Modern British Sculpture opens at the Royal Academy in just over a week, and today the RA and BBC Four announced a new collaboration - 'Sculpture on Screen' - that will give sculpture fans the chance to enjoy a feast of arts broadcasting during the run of the exhibition.

Last year we introduced you to the Louis Vuitton Young Arts Project, a programme of activities for young people and the joint effort of five London galleries including the Royal Academy. The fruits of their labours can now be seen in 'Art Imposters' a free exhibition in the gallery at Louis Vuitton Maison in New Bond Street.

In the last video blog in our Glasgow Boys series, curator MaryAnne Stevens introduces James Patterson's 'Moniaive' and explains how the painter's 'portable studio' for working outdoors influenced his work, along with the use of photography.

Formerly a fashion designer, Helen Storey has more recently investigated how science, art and fashion might come together in leading the way for a more sustainable future. Her installation 'Say Goodbye', commissioned by the Royal Academy of Arts and supported by the Royal Society of Chemistry, is a key work in the current exhibition GSK Contemporary - Aware: Art Fashion Identity at 6 Burlington...

The work of Stephen Farthing RA often refers to his fascination with art history and this is certainly true of his current Artists' Laboratory exhibition at the RA. Many of the drawings and paintings displayed were produced as a creative response to his role as editor of the book '1001 Paintings to See Before You Die'.

The RA's Kate Goodwin travelled to China recently on a design curators' study tour organised by the British Council. In part two of a series of photo-essays for this blog, she reports on Shanghai - a melting pot of architectural styles with thriving creative industries, and a domestic tourism powerhouse thanks to the city's recent World Expo.

Titled 'Work and Play, London and New York'; Chris Orr RA's current exhibition at Jill George Gallery in Soho features a range of prints and drawings of iconic city scenes. From Times Square teeming with colour and human activity to a bird's eye view of traffic in Lambeth, Orr's eye for detail reveals the complex pageantry of urban life with wry humour.

Continuing our video blog series on 'Glasgow Boys', curator Roger Billcliffe introduces James Guthrie's painting 'To Pastures New', which was first shown at the RA in 1883.

Images and text come together in the second exhibition in the RA's Artists' Laboratory series, which opens this week and features work by Stephen Farthing RA. In the video below, the artist discusses the ethos behind the exhibition, called 'The Back Story', and gives the literal back story of one of the show's key works.

In the second video in our 'Glasgow Boys' series, curator Hugh Stevenson of Glasgow Museums gives an introduction to John Lavery's famous painting 'The Tennis Party' (1885).

The RA's Kate Goodwin travelled to China recently on a design curators' study tour organised by the British Council. In part one of a series of photo-essays for this blog, she reports on the burgeoning design and architectural scene in Beijing.

Whimsicially romantic but often tinged with melancholy, artist Rob Ryan's distinctive works effortlessly bridge the worlds of art and design. After a flurry of creative collaborations, the artist has returned to his characteristically elaborate papercuts in a new solo show with TAG Fine Arts, just around the corner from the RA.

'There is no new thing under the sun… All is vanity and vexation of spirit… ' The oft-quoted words of the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes might take a somewhat bleak view of the futility human existence, but it's the same Biblical tome that exhorts us more cheerfully to 'eat, drink and be merry', accept the transitory nature of life and take pleasure in the here and now....

With the exhibition 'Pioneering Painters: The Glasgow Boys 1880 – 1900' opening this weekend, we'll be bringing you a series of videos over the next week or so that feature key works from the exhibition. The first video, below, introduces the star of the RA's poster campaign for the exhibition: 'The Druids – Bringing in the Mistletoe' (1890) by George Henry and E.A. Hornel.

The temporary art city that is Frieze Art Fair has decamped from Regent's Park. The gallerists have departed, James Fujiyama's fantasy archeological dig has been dug up, Spartacus Chetwynd's performative Cat Bus has driven back to the depot and Annika Ström's Ten Embarrassed Men have left the building. But fear not - a number of our Frieze Week top contemporary art picks around London remain open...

Simon Schama – the charismatic historian, polymath and now adviser to David Cameron – delivered an intriguing and original lecture entitled ‘Beasts and Beastliness in Contemporary Art’ as a special FT VIP event for Frieze.

After compiling our map of Frieze week events around London, the blog team made it to the event itself. Check out the short film below for some highlights of this year's fair.

RA Magazine Editor Sarah Greenberg maps out her top shows and events of Frieze week. With mobile-friendly map and print-friendly listings.

Two Royal Academicians are contributing to a new campaign that aims to resurrect the holiday postcard while raising money for Comic Relief.

Like many historic buildings in London, the Royal Academy has its fair share of ghost stories - and artist Blue Firth collects them. The RA Schools student's work deals with creating a 'supernatural archive' of Burlington House. Her research has now entered a new stage - a late night vigil in the RA Schools, open to members of the public.

Jointly organised by The Royal Parks and the Serpentine Gallery, 'Turning the World Upside Down' sees four of Anish Kapoor's highly reflective stainless steel works placed in Kensington Gardens. With video

RA Magazine visits Horace Walpole's Gothic fantasy castle on the eve of its public opening after a lengthy rebuilding and restoration project. With video

On entering Treasures from Budapest, the first thing you see is the beautifully carved St Andrew Altarpiece. One of the most striking works on display, this sixteenth-century work towers over the atmospherically lit Central Hall. In this audio slideshow, exhibition co-curator Joanna Norman explains just what it is about the altarpiece that makes it such an unusual work of art.

The London Design Festival is well underway and with more than 250 events and exhibitions taking place across the capital, it can seem somewhat overwhelming. Icon magazine's design trail booklet is a useful guide to the highlights. Unveiled yesterday, the pocket-sized guide lists around 100 recommendations and can be picked up at any of the festival's participating venues.

These days it seems we all need a plan B, and the artist Thomas Scheibitz calls attention to this in the title of his new show, ‘A moving Plan B’, that opened last night at Spruth Magers Gallery, a five-minute walk from the RA.

Starting this week, the Royal Academy's new Artists' Laboratory programme is an opportunity to explore the less familiar and experimental elements of the work of Royal Academicians. The first exhibition in the series features the work of Ian McKeever RA.

The Royal Academy's Architecure Curator, Kate Goodwin, provides a special report from Venice on the opening days of the 12th Architecture Biennale.

Who at some point has not felt like Jacob wrestling with the angel? The Bible tells of a mortal struggling with the Divine, holding fast to the angel all through the night and refusing to let go until, at dawn, he prevails and receives a blessing – an answer to his prayers.

The RA’s A-level Summer Exhibition Online runs in parallel to the Summer Exhibition. Now in its fourth year, it provides a great opportunity to see work by potential artists of the future. Any student at A-level in the UK can enter, and this year the RA received over 1,300 submissions from across the country and selected work by 56 students to present online.

RA Schools was a hive of youthful energy this week, as some 30 young people who regularly take part in education programmes at five London galleries – the RA, Tate Britain, Whitechapel Gallery, South London Gallery and Hayward Gallery – were brought together for the first Summer Academy of the Louis Vuitton Young Arts Project. The week-long series of workshops, talks and other activities primed...

Fans of David Mach RA's gorilla in the Summer Exhibition can expect more large-scale coat hanger sculptures to come, with a new project announced this week.

If you enjoyed last issue's interview with David Nash RA about his landmark exhibition at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, why not listen to the recording of his recent Royal Academy evening talk. He is joined in conversation by Peter Murray OBE, Executive Director of Yorkshire Sculpture Park, and renowned art critic Dr Richard Cork.

Past President of the Royal Academy Phillip King has been known for his sculpture – big, abstract, colourful work – since the sixties. You can see his work in lots of places: the Sidgwick site on the Cambridge University campus and Cass Sculpture Foundation at Goodwood have permanent displays and Gloucester Cathedral shows a piece this autumn, but what he has on display at Flowers Cork Street is...

Keeping the RA's Annenberg Courtyard relatively pigeon-free so visitors can enjoy the outdoor cafe without fending off skyborne raids is an ongoing effort, and it's the ancient art of falconry that best does the trick. Read more

What do Facebook and the Hilton at Heathrow have in common? Nothing, or so I thought until listening to Ballardian Architecture: Inner and Outer Space – a symposium held at the Royal Academy in May, which highlighted the relationship between science fiction writer JG Ballard, architecture and contemporary society. Read more

Painted by a very young John Singer Sargent, 'Atlantic Storm' will soon become a familiar sight for London commuters as the posters for 'Sargent and the Sea' go up across the capital. In this two minute video, Royal Academy of Arts curator Ann Dumas gives an insight into the story behind this striking image. Read more

Howard Hodgkin's new exhibition 'Time and Place' at Modern Art Oxford is something of a stylistic departure. Hodgkin is a reputedly private man. Rarely does anyone see him in the act of making, even his long-term partner Antony Peattie. His work, as a result, emits a kind of intimacy that underscores his bold marks and colours. The 25 paintings on show in Oxford have been made within the last ten...

Why do galleries and auction houses keep saying they want to be more like museums? Despite their riches, do they crave the cultural kudos that only distinguished curators and an adoring public can confer? Or is it more of a marketing technique to lure in new buyers and press and lift the value of their art to ‘museum quality’? Perhaps it's a bit of both.

The RA Schools is a unique environment – the only UK institution to offer a three-year, full-time postgraduate fine arts course. Tucked into the back of Burlington House, this network of corridors, offices and studios is normally a hive of behind-the-scenes activity (and perhaps the odd haunting). But for ten days each year, the annual Schools Show sees the doors thrown open and the historic studios...

When is the last time you were announced in a receiving line, invited to wear medals and heralded with trumpet fanfares? Unless you frequent diplomatic parties, it’s an experience from another century and one of the rituals that makes the RA’s Annual Dinner such a spectacular and eccentric experience.

What is it about British summer traditions that calls for a steel band? We all expect it for the Ashes, but for art? Anyone who was in Piccadilly yesterday late morning would have noticed the extraordinary sight of a steel band stopping traffic and leading a merry band of Royal Academicians to a Calypso beat with hundreds of artists in tow. The procession led to St James’s Piccadilly for a blessing...

Ending this Saturday, Tacita Dean’s feature-length film ‘Craneway Event’ is a must-see. Read more here