The Covid Diaries 2: The Royal Academy, Picasso and Paper

Review of the Royal Academy exhibition Picasso and Paper. In which I enjoy seeing Picasso’s immense creativity, but could have done without being herded from room to room.

Navigating the Staggered Reopening of London’s Museums

The thing about museums and galleries reopening is that it’s kind of all happening at once. They are staggering the dates, but tickets are popular and hard to come by. Sometimes this means getting out and about more frequently than the government might recommend; although they’re increasingly unclear so who knows? Anyway, what I’m trying to say is, I went to the Royal Academy shortly after visiting the Wallace Collection, and then to the National Gallery shortly after that. This made for an easy comparison of the relative merits of their Covid approaches.

To tell you about the Picasso and Paper exhibition itself first of all, I thought it was great! It’s big, and varied, and fun. The works range from 8 year old Picasso cutting out animals from paper to 90 year old Picasso reflecting on his own mortality. Via of course the Blue and Rose Periods, cubism, collages, photography, printmaking, and some creative uses for old wallpaper. It was a fairly simple chronological hang, but always tying the period back to what he was doing with paper. I didn’t find that it revolutionised my view of his work or anything, but it was an interesting lens through which to view his creative output.

Visiting the Royal Academy in the Age of Covid

So, on to how they are handling Covid19 at the Royal Academy. It was a bit of a mix in my opinion. They were great at greeting visitors, setting up expectations and guiding people through the entrance to the exhibition. On the other hand they wildly underestimate the time it takes to see the exhibition. This latter point somewhat undermines their good work.

We were told when we arrived that it would take about an hour to go through. Perhaps they had forgotten, but they have a massive exhibition space, with a lot of detailed works to see plus a video at the end. I think 90 minutes would be more like it. This might just be an adjustment to the new reality; if they had the normal number of visitors I probably would have been done in an hour or a bit less. With less of a crush I felt more able to take my time, read labels, consider each work, so was moving a bit more slowly.

At least, that is, until about 50% of the way through the exhibition. This is when the staff started frequent and loud announcements about how much time we had left, and how many rooms were remaining. Difficult to get into the flow in those circumstances! It culminated in being shooed from room to room towards the end. Once we were all in the final room (the only place we were approved to be by that point), we were told to ensure we were respecting social distancing. Hmmm.

Final Thoughts on Picasso and Paper at the Royal Academy

I don’t think the staff were at fault. I think their calculations of final entry times is just a bit off. Tickets are hard to come by so we took what we could get, but we had 2.40 PM tickets for a 4.00 PM closure, and were expected to be out by 3.45 PM. In my opinion they should stop selling a bit sooner. Or they could remain open about 20 minutes longer to allow visitors to enjoy their time more fully.

Overall though, worth going to Picasso and Paper at the Royal Academy if you can get tickets (and even better if you get an earlier slot than we did!).

On its own merits: 4/5
Implementing Covid rules: 3.5/5

Picasso and Paper until 2 August 2020