It may be housed in a magnificent old mansion in Piccadilly and recommended by Debrett’s, those masters of etiquette, as a fixture that one really ought to attend. But the Summer Exhibition isn’t that posh really. It’s the world’s biggest open contemporary art exhibition, and the idea was, and still is, to spread public enjoyment of art.

Among the 1,200 works on show are 800 from ordinary folk, which this year includes art students, amateurs, tattoo artists and bookmakers. The work of emerging artists is shown as proudly as work from the heart of the establishment, which this year includes Ed Ruscha, Michael Craig-Martin, Gillian Ayres and Tracey Emin.

Each of the public’s offerings is held up for consideration by an assembly line by a panel comprised of the 80 academicians, all artist members, who squint at and ponder over them for one exhausting week before making their final selection. For the past few years, this has included video, photography and architecture as well as sculpture and painting.

According to the exhibition’s head Edith Devaney, the public are enamoured with the exhibition because it is artists, not curators, who make the decisions.

She said: “The fact that it is put together by artists makes it such a delight to the public. They understand all the pieces have been looked at and chosen from 11,000. The judges are not looking for any subject, they are just looking for quality. And they just want to make it look great.

“It does attract a younger audience than other exhibitions and it’s great for families because it has this joyful quality to it and it is so varied. People have quite vigorous discussions about the merits of one piece over another.”

Each year the exhibition has a theme; and this year’s key word is raw.

Ms Devaney said: “This year’s theme was selected by architect David Chipperfield.

He wanted to try and encourage people to send work in which is paired down rather than polished. There is a feeling in architecture that a lot of models which are sent in are very developed and commercial, but they wanted with this to see where the original idea was, and not so it had been airbrushed out.”

Tattoo artist and printmaker Alex Binnie, who works in the Into You tattoo parlour in Farringdon, had accepted a woodcut of a heavily tattooed German woman.

He said: “I’m an interloper really. I went for the Summer Exhibition because it is the biggest and best in the world. Now tattooing has become more mainstream, but after years of railing against the establishment it is fun to see if you can get in. I went last year for the first time and came out thinking that art-making is alive and kicking in the UK.”

In the Academy’s printing room you can also see Handbook of Vulnerable Species, which contains photographs of inanimate objects which have been transformed into mythical creatures, the brainchild of freelance artist Evy Jokhova, 25, of Whitechapel.

Ms Jokhova said: “The idea of artists’ books is new for the public. The great thing about the summer exhibition is there is such a huge variety, and there is a huge public opinion about what goes in.”

Critics are generally less enthused however. Veteran art writer Brian Sewell saying this year’s offering “no longer practises standards” and is simply a money-making venture.

He is also scathing of the idea of the exhibition in principle. “The public can make up its mind about fish and chips and jellied eels, but to put it in charge of the kitchens of the Ritz would not be wise”, he says.

To this, Ms Devaney replies: “Brian comes out with an interesting critique of the summer exhibition every year, it is something we expect and is something of a tradition.

“We’ve been going for 242 years – I don’t think Brian has been writing for quite that long - and I think the public vote with their feet. It is quite an easy target because it is so varied, we represent 700 artists and it would be unreasonable to expect people to love everything.”

The Summer Exhibition runs until August 22. For more information see http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibitions/summer-exhibition/ or telephone 0844 209 0051