Royal Academy, London
Wilting flowers, soppy woodlands, a porcelain model of a disposable cup … this climate kitsch is about as concerned about the environment as Boris and Carrie Johnson
Earth’s plight is desperate but that doesn’t mean artists necessarily have anything to say about it. Some do, and have been making powerful environmental art for years. Richard Long has a piece here, the latest in a lifetime of walking through landscapes making ephemeral markers of sticks and stones, inviting you to commune like him with the fields and hills. But imposing “climate” as a theme turns out to be a goad to all that is worst in the Royal Academy. This is a catastrophic exhibition but not in the way it intends.
The insincerity hits you like a stench of decaying rubbish. I’m not saying veteran Royal Academician Allen Jones doesn’t care about the climate but his painting sure looks like a piss-take. A man and woman run towards a flaming sky, painted in his deliberately lurid pop style. Her breasts are green. Below this persiflage hangs Atomic Landscape # Prepfordeath by Zachary Walsh. It’s a big rolling green British landscape with a mushroom cloud on the horizon.
