Had a wonderful break from the colorphobia often seen in well-behaved English art: went to the David Hockney show in London at Tate Britain.
We encounter his paintings mostly through reproductions in books, so it was striking to see them full-scale: so much attention to detail – a phenomenal evidence of hard work and care in their realisation, no effort wasted here. This level of attention to detail is combined with its opposite, a gestural freedom, and a willingness to work in a variety of styles (at times in the same work*) and trying out new things, an openness to new ideas.
As in the last retrospective of his work, which I saw at the same place in London back in 1988/89 (described in Cinema and the Audiovisual Imagination) Hockney provides us with his own illuminating and engaging commentary in the audio-guide. His anecdotes are very amusing and feature some of the challenges he has had to face: at one end of the academic scale, the threat by the Royal Academy that he might not graduate if he didn’t have evidence of a naturalistic depiction of the human body, to working in the art school arena in the 70s, when life drawing was no longer the fashion. He points out that for him drawing is a way of looking – it’s a never-ending way to learn to see.
A truly diverse range of expression is shown here: explorations of colour, line, texture, space (Hockney explains that he’s fanatical about space) - drawings, prints, paintings, photograph multiples, film, and most recently I-Pad depictions, which themselves open a new form of art, prompting new ways of creating and looking.
His theatre work is absent (it was shown in an amazing and innovative exhibition at the Hayward Gallery some years ago). The Four Seasons (for four multi-screens projected on four walls facing each other) provokes an extended contemplation, with its slow hypnotic rhythm. In one of the seasons there’s an amusing and unexpected appearance of a car, moving slowly amidst the resplendent depiction of nature, shown previously without human presence. The whole work is startlingly original, not at all a diffusion of attention, which can often feature in multi-screen work.
Hockney, now 79, is asked what he would like to leave us with. Joy, he mentions above all - to develop a continuing appreciation of the wonderful in our lives and in our surroundings. Something much-needed at this time.
As a lady from Yazd explained, in the tradition of Zoroastrianism 'we wear bright colours to freshen our souls.'**
*Thanks to the artist filmmaker Dennis Dracup who reminded me that the multiple styles are also featured in the same work. (This is also a feature found in the best and most enduring music).
**From the wonderful BBC4 documentary, The Silk Road, presented by Dr Sam Willis:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03qb130
http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/david-hockney
We encounter his paintings mostly through reproductions in books, so it was striking to see them full-scale: so much attention to detail – a phenomenal evidence of hard work and care in their realisation, no effort wasted here. This level of attention to detail is combined with its opposite, a gestural freedom, and a willingness to work in a variety of styles (at times in the same work*) and trying out new things, an openness to new ideas.
As in the last retrospective of his work, which I saw at the same place in London back in 1988/89 (described in Cinema and the Audiovisual Imagination) Hockney provides us with his own illuminating and engaging commentary in the audio-guide. His anecdotes are very amusing and feature some of the challenges he has had to face: at one end of the academic scale, the threat by the Royal Academy that he might not graduate if he didn’t have evidence of a naturalistic depiction of the human body, to working in the art school arena in the 70s, when life drawing was no longer the fashion. He points out that for him drawing is a way of looking – it’s a never-ending way to learn to see.
A truly diverse range of expression is shown here: explorations of colour, line, texture, space (Hockney explains that he’s fanatical about space) - drawings, prints, paintings, photograph multiples, film, and most recently I-Pad depictions, which themselves open a new form of art, prompting new ways of creating and looking.
His theatre work is absent (it was shown in an amazing and innovative exhibition at the Hayward Gallery some years ago). The Four Seasons (for four multi-screens projected on four walls facing each other) provokes an extended contemplation, with its slow hypnotic rhythm. In one of the seasons there’s an amusing and unexpected appearance of a car, moving slowly amidst the resplendent depiction of nature, shown previously without human presence. The whole work is startlingly original, not at all a diffusion of attention, which can often feature in multi-screen work.
Hockney, now 79, is asked what he would like to leave us with. Joy, he mentions above all - to develop a continuing appreciation of the wonderful in our lives and in our surroundings. Something much-needed at this time.
As a lady from Yazd explained, in the tradition of Zoroastrianism 'we wear bright colours to freshen our souls.'**
*Thanks to the artist filmmaker Dennis Dracup who reminded me that the multiple styles are also featured in the same work. (This is also a feature found in the best and most enduring music).
**From the wonderful BBC4 documentary, The Silk Road, presented by Dr Sam Willis:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03qb130
http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/david-hockney