Gold rats, inflatable balls and community photography: inside the Royal Academy's 2025 Summer Exhibition

Time Out

a day ago

If looking at more than 1,700 pieces of art isn't enough for you, there are some great games you can play with yourself while walking around the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition. Spot the famous artist. Guess the price of a painting. Or, my personal favourite: channel interior designer and pick works to 'imaginary decorate' your overpriced rented basement flat in Clapton.
The RA Summer Exhibition has been held every year since 1769, and in 2025, it's been coordinated by renowned British-Iranian architect Farshid Moussavi. You'll see architectural drawings, models and nods to our built environment dotted throughout the exhibitoin, not bound by one room. There will be no bright yellow or turquoise walls this year – it's all cleanly white – and the whole thing feels calmer, less cluttered, with more space for works to breathe (and less craning of your neck to see the stuff up top).
It is, as usual, open to all. There's plenty of the big dawgs here: you'll see scribbled heads by Quentin Blake, a (Juergen Teller) photograph of Marina Abramović looking all witchy, a warm, washed-over Frank Bowling canvas, a collaged photographic face by Cindy Sherman and much more. But there also is, undoubtedly, a lot of shit art. Horrid, boring geometric neon stencils. Cats. Flat, unfinished-looking canvases. Sculpture which looks like it belongs in Primark's home section.
But getting hung up on the crap is not really the point: it's about the spectacle, the discovery, the loose themes you can trace between seemingly randomly placed works. And there is some genuinely great stuff, too – stuff that will stop you in your tracks, from well-known artists, unknown artists, and from artists in between. Here are five of our favourites.
1. Ryan Gander's inflatable balls
Before you even enter Burlington House, you'll come face to face with big, black, blow-up balls, which have been set up in the courtyard to look like they've been halted, mid-roll. They're squishy and shiny, and each is adorned with a child-like, hard-to-answer question: 'When do you know you're right?' 'How much is a lot?' 'Do all doors open?' and so on. One is wedged on the roof, another is inside the exhibition, blocking one of the main room's three arches, giving you only two routes to take around this year. These are not only really fun to look at, but they also question your routine and the way you look at art, prompting you to be inquisitive and open-minded before you even enter the building.
2. 101 white rat pelts, Zatorski + Zatorski
These are objectively naff, but I appreciate deep, inescapable discomfort these 101 hollowed-out rats bring. Their insides and eyes are brushed with 24ct gold, and they're all arranged, standing up in an outwards-facing circle, as though watching you, or about to attack. It instantly made me think about animal testing, and about the extremes people will go to, for riches. You can't help but feel sorry for the things.
3. Community Dialogue, John Waine
There's something about this modest photograph of a Frome community notice board, all posters overlapped and peeling, offering Spanish lessons, flea markets, festivals, short-term lets and fundraisers, which filled me with nostalgia, despite the dates only the flyers only reading 2023. Not sure about the frame though.
4. Rock Pool, Terry Setch
This mixed media piece looks like the debris of fishing baskets washed up on the beach, or the rusting rainbow colours of corroded metal rubbing on clothing. The texture is brilliant. Crucially, it makes me want to ask: can I touch it?
5. 'You remained always beautiful', Tracey Emin
This is one of two of Emin works in the show: she also has the more prominently placed pastel-painted 'The Crucifixion', but it's this moody, melancholy portrait, tucked away in one of the top corners in the entrance room, which stuck with me. The eyes look downwards and the shoulders are hunched, almost blending into the background; the facial features imperfect, only just distinguishable. The whole thing is uncomfortable to look at and as a result, it carries a real a sense of dread. Moving, memorable portraiture.
The 2025 RA Sumer Exhibition is on from June 17 until August 17, 2025. Find out more here.