If the disparate array of sculpture, painting, photography and architecture is an insight into the national psyche, one message rises above the clamour: we're not going down without a fight.
This adroit collection is an antidote to the age of austerity and dreariness and, while it acknowledges cataclysm, there are plenty of bright colours that surround an explosion (notable in Keith Tyson's Deep Impact).
Co-ordinator Christopher Le Brun, explaining the lack of video, said he didn't want darkened rooms. "Daylight everywhere!" was his mantra.
And so it does. Electric colours and a neon buzz lift the spirit. Works are brimming with life, and endlessly fascinated by human lusts, foibles, amusements and nightmares.
Even the world of work has a spring in its step. Chris Orr's London sees us worker bees in a Richard Scarry carnival of life while David Mach's Liquidation has Canary Wharf as a decadent playground.
Veterans of the summer exhibition will note a new lay-out, a more coherent approach and interventions allowing works to talk to each other.
This is a royal celebration of the modern RA alongside the best of the potting shed wannabes making glorious art in the shadows and savouring their moment in the sun.
– From June 2011
