See the art the Royal Academy rejected for the Summer Exhibition

Each year, thousands of artists submit their creations to be included in the Royal Academy of Art’s summer exhibition, but what happens to the rejects?

A pop-up exhibition is opening next week that has taken some of the 13,000 rejected pieces and will put them on display in a gallery next to Bermondsey’s White Cube.

This Alternative Royal Academy Summer Exhibition offers you to see for yourself if these artists should have made the cut, and if you can find an artist as talented as previous rejects such as Banksy, Édouard Manet and Rebecca Salter.

The difference? You can probably still afford this art.

The art is as eclectic as the range of artists themselves, featuring a display of the best contemporary art on the market, with work across a range of different mediums from large-scale abstract paintings to mixed media collages, experimental photography to oil paintings and drawings, screen prints to embroidery.

The exhibition opens on Friday 28th July and is open daily for one week until Thursday 3rd August 2023.

Tickets are free, and need to be booked in advance from here:

Fri 28th July (11am to 7:30pm)

Sat 29th July (10am to 6pm)

Sun 30th July (11am to 5pm)

Mon 31st July (11am to 7:30pm)

Tues 1st Aug (11am to 7:30pm)

Wed 2nd Aug (11am to 7:30pm)

Thur 3rd Aug (11am to 7:30pm)

Shona Bland, founder of Art Friend, says: “This exhibition is not designed to present in opposition to The Royal Academy, rather to give more submitting artists a chance to have their work displayed in a contemporary, conversational space, providing more talented people the opportunity to have their work seen and bought by art lovers, buyers, and collectors. ”

The launch party is on Thursday 27th July from 6pm to 9pm – details here.

Of course, this exhibition of rejects has itself rejected artworks — so maybe there will be a cascade of art exhibitions each showing off the shrinking pool of art rejected by the previous exhibition until we finally get to the very last one to be left out of the 13,000 artworks that were submitted.

It’ll probably become famous for being the last one standing, and earn the artist a fortune.