Goth Summer

Victor Hugo, Bold Tendencies, Fatzoo

The beginning of June sees a flurry of activity across London's galleries, hastened by London Gallery Weekend and the need to open 'important' exhibitions before everyone disappears for the summer after next week's Art Basel. It's also the occasion of The Royal Academy's much-loved Summer Show. I take the now unfashionable view that for the most part it is fairly mediocre. I should probably be less mean-spirited towards it - it's a bit of fun, raises lots of money, and I'm sure it does a great job of bringing in new audiences and creating opportunities for artists. I won't be going out of my way to see it, but if you insist on visiting it, then do yourself a favour and go upstairs to catch the final weeks of the aptly titled Astonishing Things - The Drawings of Victor Hugo, until 29 June.

Hugo, of course better known as the writer of Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, as well as being a poet and politician, produced thousands of ink drawings. Three thousand survive today, of which seventy are on display at The RA. They range in subject matter from mushrooms, to octopuses, to castles, to capital punishment - all of it shrouded in a satisfyingly gothic tone and temperament. Often dark, experimental and surreal, the drawings anticipate modernism and demonstrate his extraordinary creativity beyond the written word, while visual experimentation in the form of ink blots, abstract forms, and dreamlike landscapes, predated and influenced movements such as Symbolism and Surrealism. The show has been lauded elsewhere and it's a rare opportunity to experience the breadth of his creative output.