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Review Nov 18 2009 « | »
RCA Secret 2009 Two scrutinies of the Royal College of Art's Great Leveller, in support of their Fine Art Student Award...

Robert Copsey

It is fair to say nowadays that a person rarely ever bags themselves an art bargain. Even with the recession still eating at our wallets and purses, a collector at Sotheby's last week forked out £26.5million to buy Andy Warhol's '200 100 Dollar Bills'. A sell of more than three times its high estimate.

For those of us who don't have as much cash lying around, the annual RCA Secret exhibition was perhaps even more welcome than usual. After all, who wouldn't want to miss out on an original Yoko Ono, Grayson Perry or even James Dyson design with an early January sale-style price tag?

With a champagne reception and an array of goody bags and free gifts in the foyer, this recession-busting art sale seemed all the more authentic, clearly steering away from descending in to a one-day-only smash-and-grab event.

This year's exhibition totalled 2,700 postcard-sized pieces from 1,016 established and up-and-coming RCA designers and artists. Each postcard is for sale at £40 no matter who the artist is - but you won't know the name of the artist until you have bought it. We all saw that coming though, didn't we?

Contributors also included animator Nick Park, Erdem, Manolo Blahnik, Tracey Emin, Lawrence Weiner and Alex Katz. As ever, postcards ranged from the political, to the explicit, to the out-rightly abstract. But with an overwhelming amount of bite-sized art to get through there was not only a danger of missing the golden postcards, but also overlooking some thought-provoking designs from fresh and original talent.

A painting of the Queen stood out for me for its royal yet painfully suburban nature, whereas the image of a man fornicating with a motor seemed to act as an explicit display of the artist's own affections.

As many of the established artists strayed from their usual artistic strengths in a bid to remain anonymous (photographer and regular contributor David Bailey has not once submitted a photograph), it was only natural that a handful of student contributors intentionally played up to this (see: postcard with Damien Hurst's signature on it).

Despite the affordable price tag for each piece, money was still a common theme on several designs and served as a punctuator of the evening. The dollar symbol formed out of a snake, a postcard stating 'The only work I will sell this year' and another 'I am on the dole' reminded me of the real secret of this event; that when names are removed art becomes valuable on an entirely personal level.

Limei Hoang

I have never seen so many people scrutinize postcards laid out for display. But then, these are no ordinary postcards. Dubbed as potential masterpieces in the making, the annual RCA Secret exhibition draws in art enthusiasts, students, tourists, and general normal folk alike.

The mystery of each author may be what entices so many to the exhibition, each viewer analysing more than 2,000 pieces, looking for details that perhaps give away clues to the artist's identity. The elation one must feel when the author of your postcard is one of the many famous names who contributed, must be pretty gratifying.

However, the optimist in me wants to believe that at least some of the crowd has come to appreciate art in its finest form. The nameless kind. It is here that people's perception of art, of taste, of their own aesthetics is challenged. It is here that new and emerging talent can hold their own against artists such as Grayson Perry, Tracey Emin and Julian Opie.

Brush strokes, photography, collages, watercolours, are all given the same consideration and attentions lavished upon the other works, each postcard vying to be understood and appreciated. This is the sheer genius and beauty of the event, the fact that it allows fresh talent to be shown alongside the established.

Viewers are put into a position where they must use their own artistic personal preferences to analyse each piece to find what appeals to them, before making a bid on what could potentially turn out to be a very valuable item. At the very least, buyers will get a piece that they considered worth purchasing for its colour, texture or skill rather than just for its famous author.

This year's offerings will be sold off in a one-day sale on Sunday 21 November. The sale runs from 8am to 6pm and those wishing to bid, must register beforehand (online registration closes on Tuesday 17 November). Purchases are limited to four postcards each and the identities of the authors are displayed only on the back so each creator remains a secret until after the sale when the signature is revealed.

More than 800 artists have contributed including names such as Cornelia Parker, David Bailey, Sir Paul Smith and Erdem. All proceeds of the auction go to the RCA Fine Art Student Award Fund, which supports student artists during their time at the Royal College of Art.

RCA Secret 2009 runs from Friday 13 November until Friday 20 November at Royal College of Art, Kensington Gore, London SW7 2EU Free admission. Website here.

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