Held every year since 1769, the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition 2025 showcases a diverse array of contemporary works, including prints, paintings, films, photography, sculpture and architectural works. It features a mix of art by household names and emerging talent, and this year will explore the theme of Dialogues.
Many works will be available to buy and sales will directly support the exhibiting artists and the RA’s charitable work, including training the next generation of artists at the Royal Academy Schools.
‘The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2025 will be dedicated to art’s capacity to forge dialogues and to afford us sensitivity towards societal concerns, such as ecology, survival and living together. These dialogues can be between people of different races, genders, or cultures; between humans, all species, and the planet; or across different disciplines – art, science, politics, for example,’ said architect and Royal Academician Farshid Moussavi RA, coordinator of Summer Exhibition 2025.
For the first time, architecture will be integrated with the artworks throughout the show.
Artists exhibiting work this year include British artist Alice Channer, whose 6m-high installation of ostrich feathers and steel chain will greet visitors as they enter the exhibition. Brazilian artist Antonio Tarsis will create a work especially for the show consisting of a 4.5m-high and 7m-wide wall made from deconstructed matchboxes, while hanging above visitors in the largest gallery will be an installation of textile carcasses by Argentine-American artist Tamara Kostianovsky.
Other artists invited to exhibit this year include Lucy and Jorge Orta, Hussein Chalayan, Anya Gallaccio and John Walker.
In addition to the large number of public submissions, Royal Academicians will be showing works, including Rana Begum, Frank Bowling, Grayson Perry, Lubaina Himid, Cornelia Parker, Veronica Ryan, Conrad Shawcross, Yinka Shonibare and Rose Wylie.
Honorary Royal Academician Jenny Holzer will be showing work at the Summer Exhibition for the very first time. Other Honorary Royal Academicians will include Marina Abramović, El Anatsui, Marlene Dumas, William Kentridge, Mimmo Paladino and Kiki Smith. There will also be memorials to the late Royal Academicians Norman Ackroyd and Timothy Hyman.
Committee members Tom Emerson and Stephanie Macdonald RA of 6a Architects have, in response to the theme, invited architectural submissions that explore how architecture can bring society together and reconnect with nature. On display will be work by architects and designers including Material Cultures, DK-CM, Arinjoy Sen and JA Projects, which will present an interactive installation first seen at the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale.
A 6m-high multi- purpose roost for wildlife, designed by 51 Architecture, will be on view in the Lovelace Courtyard, located between Burlington House and Burlington Gardens.
A large-scale installation by Ryan Gander RA will be on display in the Annenberg Courtyard. Featuring five 3m-diameter inflatable balls inscribed with absurd questions developed with children, the work represents the inquisitiveness of children who ask what grown-up minds often dismiss as nonsensical or illogical.
This year’s exhibition takes place 17 June – 17 August 2025, in the Main Galleries, Burlington House.
