People may think Hockney is a little obvious or populist, but I realise Hockney is a quality artist.
David Hockney – Bigger and Closer (not smaller and further away) | Factory International @ Aviva Studios 10 December 2024 – 25 January 2025 | Reviewed by Liam Starkey
Getting into the exhibition is a little disorientating. It’s like going backstage on a TV set. The exhibition space is like a huge plushily carpeted room with low benches dotted round and a viewing platform. All four walls have a rolling projection of Hockney’s art-work sometimes animated with a Hockney voice-over explaining his work. The friend accompanying me was babysitting a puppy and asked if she could bring a dog in a pram into the exhibition space (I’d love to have some of what she’s taking). As it was, there were lots of parents with small babies toddling around but no pooches.
The gallery has the atmosphere of a busy bus station with people coming and going all the time. Maybe some comfy chairs should have been provided as some people can’t get comfortable in various yoga positions on the upholstered floor. One chap looked particularly uncomfortable, and I worried a chiropractor would be called. They need to think about this.
I didn’t learn much new about Hockney. I learned that perspective doesn’t work in the Grand Canyon because it’s an endless series of folds, but other sections about the controversial claim that the earliest cameras were used by Renaissance artists, I had seen in a Channel 4 documentary.
The opera set section was interesting, but I’d seen the majority of it before in the book, Hockney’s Pictures (Thames & Hudson). I’d had experience with this kind of thing before with the 2017 film ‘Loving Vincent’, an animation about the life of Vincent Van Gogh which was largely hand painted by Polish animators. LV was more captivating. I’ve been covering Team Lab exhibitions in Asia and this was like a pale imitation of what can be achieved these days with animation, coding and graphics.
I came to this as a Hockney enthusiast; I left entertained and enchanted but underwhelmed.
The archive recordings of Hockney’s voice were a little confusing. His younger voice sounds totally different and initially I thought it was a collaborator.
In the section on Los Angeles I learned that Hockney moved to Los Angeles without knowing a soul which seemed brave but that he liked the sense of liberation on the West Coast for (not explicitly said) a gay man.
I took some photos of the swimming pool nudes but Apple or O2 put a sensitivity notification on them before they reached my partner’s phone.
It reminded me of IMAX, not Dune, which was the last IMAX film I saw, but earlier IMAX of undersea creatures I saw at the National Museum of Film and Photography (now the National Media Museum) in Hockney’s native Bradford in the 1990s; sensuous flowing, light and images, wonderful rich saturated colour.
I liked the polaroid section and even considered experimenting with polaroid myself (I make collages). There were interesting discussions on time. Some of the exhibition was pleasantly ‘meta’. I was wondering if it was fascinating or just a load of polaroids stuck together. Is it art theory or just a load of bright colourful humorous paintings a la Beryl Cook?
I have often felt that Hockney, like Isherwood, lives something of a charmed life. I liked the philosophical musing that ‘there is no such thing as bad weather’, but tell that to the residents of Valencia. I know he has had tragedy in his life when his assistant died after accidentally drinking drain fluid (Coroner’s verdict: ‘misadventure’).
Up until now I have found this spacecraft like structure on Water Street something of a mystery. I missed the Yayoi Kusama exhibition, and I think the price point of the exhibitions at £25 for a standard ticket is a little high. But It’s good to have world class art coming to Manchester on a regular basis.
If you want to see some Hockneys for free, relatively locally, there is a rotating permanent Hockney exhibition at Saltaire model village in Bradford. There is also a collection at Lister Park Gallery in Bradford.
The exhibition is on until the 25th of January and some sessions are in high demand. I would consider going back to take it in again. People may think Hockney is a little obvious or populist, but I realise Hockney is a quality artist, and I might try re-buying the Hockney prints I sold on Ebay over the summer.
Reviewed by Liam Starkey