Royal Academy Sculpture Show

Today we went to the Royal Academy. I have recently joined as a friend of the RA and I am keen to make this a regular place to visit and hopefully with all of the family. After the success of today's visit I think it will be a popular place to go for a day out!

We were here for the sculpture exhibition which is


Showing exhibits from artists such as Anthony Caro with his" bright red, industrial, Early one Morning, " as described by Henry aged 13. Tony Cragg with his cube of recycled " rubbish, but look how exact and square it is!" as described by Hayden aged 15.

The boys were really enthralled and inspired, right from a small square piece by Ben Nicholson which caused a great discussion about colour and form - I was enjoying the exhibition so much through their eyes I almost forgot to look at anything myself!

Unfortunately Elliott was feeling unwell the whole way round and Anna had been whisked off to Pret a manger by Matt so I was looking after Elliott and listening to the boys. They loved the Barbara Hepworth piece that dominated a room titled Single Piece and were fascinated by Damien Hirsts Abandoned Barbeque - that man makes art purely for the fascination of teenage boys - they were obsessed with looking at the dead flies and rotting corpses of cows and a chicken. They were wondering how on earth the installation would ever be disbanded and what would happen to all of the flies!

Every exhibit brought fresh ideas and new comments and different angles,this was one of the most interesting couple of hours I have spent in the company of teenagers for a while and it was so interesting to hear them articulate about the pieces. They loved the half pear/ half apple suspended from the ceiling by a thread and we discussed whether the shadows that fell from it were an important part of the visual impact and make up of the piece.

Another favourite was the basketball in water by Jeff Koons which I thought was ridiculous but the boys thought was really cool.

All in all and with a quite unwell Elliott in tow the exhibition was a great success and there was a lot of inspirational food for thought as well as some things which were quite frankly ridiculous such a a line of White chalk boulders and a neat retangular and symmetrical arrangement of 120 bricks entitled Equivalent V111. The bricks are low lying and adjoining but not attached. These, the boys observed were not dissimilar to the bricks we had seen stacked at a builders merchants just the other week and even the book guide suggestion that there was a correlation between this and the cenotaph was absurd! This exhibit prompted the boys to pause dramatically at very piece of road works on the way back to the car and ask the question " road works or sculpture?" and sometimes it is hard to tell!