Preview: RWA 166 Annual Open Exhibition

Bristol’s longest-running open art exhibition returns this month – for its 166th year.

The Royal West of England Academy’s Annual Open Exhibition has always been a hot date in the city’s art calendar, attracting submissions from painters, illustrators, sculptors, printers and filmmakers from across the globe. But what does it take to get this monster exhibition off the ground and on to the walls?

“We start thinking about the next Annual Open as soon as the last one has opened,” RWA director Alison Bevan explains, standing in the RWA’s beautiful main galleries, surrounded by scurrying artists, packing crates and bubble wrap.

This year’s Open attracted a record 3,223 submissions: 1,298 of these made it past the first selection stage

Curatorial and technical manager Tristan Pollard has been with the RWA for 20 years: this will be his 19th Annual Open. “The biggest challenge is the hand-in day – because you never know what you’re going to get,” Tristan reveals. “It’s very full-on. You get a couple of hours when no one comes in and then there’s suddenly a mighty rush of artists – sometimes a couple of hundred all at the same time.”

On hand-in day the artworks pile up, in neat, carefully-labelled stacks along the gallery’s gleaming walls. What happens next? “Then it’s Selection Day,” Tristan explains. “It’s always really fun but very intense! We have so many artworks to look through in one day. It’s a bit tough on the knees too.”

On Selection Day, the judging panel examine the thousands of artworks submitted…

“Yes, Selection Day is fascinating,” agrees Alison, “but brutal. Each piece is carried past the panel of judges and once they’ve had a chance to look, they’re asked to vote. Every year, I’m astonished at the number of brilliant artworks on the ‘out’ pile. There’s always tension in the air.”

… and vote on which works will make it through to the Exhibition

How do they arrange so many varied works in the space? “The hanging team and I spread them on the floor,” says Tristan. “Very slowly, a wall emerges. It’s always a real challenge to fit in works of different sizes and styles. Sometimes you’ll get a piece that has colours or a subject matter that seems to clash with everything around it. Our job is to make each wall balanced and aesthetically pleasing – not just a hotch-potch.”

Any particularly tricky artworks from memory? “I remember one sculpture, a life-sized figure of a man,” says Tristan. “He was stretched out in a crucifix pose and he was… anatomically correct, shall we say. We got a lot of comments about that one.”

Then, it’s a case of working out what will go where on the RWA’s walls

The exhibition doesn’t show any signs of slowing down. This year, the show attracted a record-smashing 3,223 submissions, of which 1,298 made it past the first selection stage. “For emerging artists, it’s a great big ‘tick’ to put on your CV,” says Alison, “and a chance to meet other artists – perhaps some of your artistic heroes – as equals. Most importantly, it’s entirely democratic. It doesn’t matter who you are or how much training or experience you have, it’s your work that counts. Looking back at our history, some of the UK’s leading artists from every decade have exhibited in the show – cheek-by-jowl with complete unknowns.”

166 Annual Open Exhibition Oct 7-Nov 25, Royal West of England Academy. For more information, visit www.rwaopen.co.uk

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