"Too much fucking perspective" - David St.Hubbins
You wouldn't expect the (fictional) vocalist and guitarist of rock behemoths Spinal Tap, David St.Hubbins, and the celebrated octogenarian pop artist David Hockney to have much in common and, indeed, I think it's fairly certain that Hockney has never written a song called Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight and that St. Hubbins has never sold one of his paintings for £23,100,000.
But when it comes to perspective it seems they're in complete agreement. Even if Hockney puts it in somewhat milder terms. In his new, and rather pricey, show at the Lightroom near King's Cross (there are two things about Hockney - his shows always attract large crowds and, perhaps because of this, they end up being quite expensive) we can hear Hockney talk about how, for example, trees don't conform to the laws of perspective. When making an image of a tree it is better to ignore perspective entirely.
David Hockney:Bigger & Closer (not smaller & further away) is an unusual kind of art show. It's not an exhibition as such. It's more of an immersive experience which can, when handled badly, be quite cringe inducing. At the Lightroom, fortunately, the concept is pared down. Essentially you walk down a few flights of stairs, along a couple of corridors, and out into one large room where people sit on the floor, on benches, or stand and watch as all four walls and the floor (though sadly not the ceiling) fill with images of Hockney's work.
Mostly his more recent work but there are some oldies in there too. At the same time Hockney talks about his life, his work, and his process. His blunt, yet avuncular, West Yorkshire accent hardly affected by spending most of his life in the California sunshine.
He talks about California (he knew he'd love it but it surpassed his expectations immediately), he talks about perspective, he talks about weather (he likes all different kinds of weather but you suspect, with California in mind, sunshine is his favourite), he talks about his fascination with swimming pools, and he talks about the stage designs he's made for performances of works by classic composers. Big names too:- Mozart, Satie, Puccini, Stravinsky, Wagner, Ravel, and Poulenc.
He talks about the difference between photography and painting, about how paintings can show the passing of time in the way a single photograph cannot, and he talks about how he solved this riddle by moving into make photographic collages that show people, and places, at various different moments to create an illusion of movement.
He talks about how photographs sometimes, particularly in the case of a series of images of the Grand Canyon he once made, didn't quite cut it and he had to go back to painting. At all times you're reminded that even at the grand old age of eighty-five Hockney is still experimenting, still trying new things. He also remains remorselessly enthusiastic about his life and his art. It may be easier when you're both a roaring success and presumably have no financial concerns but there are plenty of others who don't seem to have found the inner satisfaction that comes through whenever you hear Hockney speak.
It wasn't the sort of show in which you had to do any reading so I just sat back and let the images flood over me. Swimming pools, trees, society figures, images of other artist's work, more swimming pools, and one crazy jumping frog that looked like it'd walked in from a Prefab Sprout video. The work, we can all agree, is very good.
At one point, as the film scanned upwards, there was an illusion, a very gentle one, that the room was moving. It wasn't. But the art was moving and that was gentle too. I came away with the impression that when it comes to creating images David Hockney is something of a genius. A gentle genius.
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