david hockney: inside his reality

Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) (1972)

Pearblossom Highway (1986)

Mulholland Drive: the Road to the Studio (1980)

A Lawn Being Sprinkled (1967)

A Bigger Splash (1967)

California Art Collector (1964)

Flight into Italy – Swiss Landscape (1962)

David Hockney has always been a hyperactive artist, exploring the potentials of painting, drawing, and photography. However, within his seemingly ever-changing body of work, persists a desire to capture reality, and not in a necessarily naturalistic manner. Geldzahler has said that “he [Hockney] has become increasingly fascinated by exactly how things look.”[1] Hockney has also claimed, “People who look hardest in the end will be good artists.”[2] I will discuss a few of the many ways in which Hockey has manifested this desire, with a particular emphasis on his paintings. Firstly, in a significant portion of his work, there is a tendency to extract and dissect as much visual information as he can from an image or scene. As has been noted by Clothier and acknowledged by Hockney himself, there is in his work a prevalent cubist approach to break up single images into multi-faceted ones. It is also important to observe that much of his work centers on human experiences. Hockney, in his frequent multi-perspective approach, presents challenging interpretations of reality; at the same time, the approachable subject matter and his clever use of space are user-friendly, inviting the viewer into the picture plane, inspiring them to look at reality from a fresh outlook.

Hockney has frequently criticized photography, claiming that “it’s a view that’s too mechanical, too devoid of life.”[3] Indeed, Hockney’s intention is to convey a sense of life in movement. He wants us to be in the picture, to feel around and inside the space of his work. In order to do so, there can be no firm edges or single perspectives. We do not live in narrow, boxed-up planes; we always have space to move in and are constantly observing the world from various angles. This is why Hockney claims to “break” or “alter” the edges of the picture plane and tends to employ multiple perspectives within a single image.[4]

These qualities are prevalent in one of his earlier paintings, from 1962, Flight into Italy – Swiss Landscape. It conveys a strong sense of movement that prevents the scene from becoming contained or restrained by edges. Streaks of pale blue brush past the bodies, suggesting speed while stretching off their skin in the process. Our eye imagines a continuation to this journey, a destination beyond the edges of the plane. The colorful waves that make up the mountains are cut off mid-wave, lending the illusion of a continuous flow. The word ‘Paris’ with an arrow pointing outside to the left of the picture plane likewise signals that there is a path and a place that has already been left. The unusual use of perspective also expands the spectator’s viewpoint. The people depicted are at once outside and inside the car: their bodies are not fully covered by the car’s exterior. However, one of the figures handles a wheel that by contrast is clearly inside the car. The figure in the back also desperately grabs the figure in front of him, as if he was about to fly off - but are they not inside the car? This ambiguity of location in space continues with the rendering of the house and trees. Though both are placed in close proximity to the human figures on the picture plane, their scales are completely nonsensical: the house is practically the same size as the human figures. Perhaps Hockney wants to indicate that the house is far from the figures; but, at the same time, the shadows that wrap around the house in a ghostly manner are the same transparent blacks and reds that cover the car. The foreground and background at once separate and merge. Finally, we observe the house from a bird’s eye perspective, while we see the human figures and the car from the side. We are not confined to one view. Indeed, our perception expands the harder we look. The process of looking at this painting is like looking at something in real life: what we see changes from one moment to the next.

This close dialogue with reality is made further possible by the large scale of the works, which allows us to scan and relate to the images on a near-human scale, to enter and become part of it. The scale also requires us to spend time scanning the image and to sense the passage of time within the depicted moment. Hockney claims that the perception of time prevents a work from becoming static and lifeless. To him, time is always present in a painting “because a hand moving across it means time is involved.”[5] Thus the act of painting mimics a moment in real life: it is built in physical stages. There are various ways to feel time within his work: the appreciation that each image within one plane was born at a different moment in time; the presence of movement; and finally, the connection of the depicted moment to life itself. Hockney has claimed that his work is autobiographical, that all of his images were extracted from human experiences.[6] Thereby, the images themselves have once existed in a specific moment in time.

On the other hand, quite often in his paintings, as in his Los Angeles series, life is completely still. However, their very stillness makes us look at them even harder, as they create their own reality. Just as in Flight into Italy – Swiss Landscape, where Hockney aimed to value motion and perspective, in several of his still images he places every object with equal importance on a frozen plane. Hockney offers alternative ways of seeing, playing with perpetual and simultaneous motion and utter stillness.

In California Art Collector, one imagines that Hockney was at first looking at a larger scene, then selected certain elements from it and compressed them all into an apparently still new plane. The female figure seems to be under an awning outdoors; however, she sits on a living room chair that is placed on carpeting. Is she outside, or are we looking into an interior? A rainbow invades this space as a supportive architectural element. There is likewise a white form on the back wall that resembles a small cloud. This overlapping of scenes engenders a sense of displacement and simultaneity, and thus a degree of movement. Indeed, to Hockney, what lends the most movement and life to a picture is not necessarily what the subject is doing, but rather how the shapes and objects interact with the space. In his book The Way I See It, Hockney claims he does not like to excessively use horizontal shapes in his work for it engenders too much visual stillness (52). California Art Collector and other works from the same period (the early sixties) may appear entirely still at first glance, but they are not altogether static. They possess those essential elements previously discussed – large scale, a lack of confining edges, odd perspectives, and a profusion of shapes – all of which prevent the images from becoming entirely tight and frozen, giving them room to breathe.

The subject matter likewise grounds the work in reality since it consistently stresses the human experience. Even in those scenes with no human figures, the human presence is often implied through the setting or the work’s title. In A Bigger Splash, the solitary chair, the pool board, and the splash point to the event that a person has just jumped into the pool. In A Lawn Being Sprinkled, somebody obviously turned the sprinkler on; it is a domestic task, emphasized by the depiction of a house in the background. Even in some of his landscapes, such as Mulholland Drive: the Road to the Studio, not only does the title refer to a destination, Hockney’s own ‘studio,’ but also the mountains themselves are punctured with roads and structures. In some areas of the painting there even appears to be some ambiguity as to what is a structure and what is nature: in the bottom left there is a level plane that resembles a flattened house with windows. Thus, Hockney’s work is about interactions among people or about their interaction with the environment.

Importantly, the human perspective itself is a central theme. In Hockney’s photomontages, as spectators we are led to question and merge three ways of seeing: what we see through our own eyes, the photographic perspective, and Hockney’s unusual composition. In Pearblossom Highway, Hockney has expanded the perception of the highway by breaking the image up into squares that are in turn rotated, zoomed and overlapped. He thus breaks the flatness and one-point perspective of photography by creating a new reality that is much closer to the actual perception of the human eye – we are at once hovering from one place to another and absorbing the whole. As Clothier puts it, Hockney’s photomontages are “a truer layering of space and time.”

In Hockney’s works we are not merely spectators. We always interact with them, even when we feel, as Melia has stressed, like “voyeurs,” such as in his paintings of nude boys emerging from the pool, or in Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures), where one of the figures is immersed under water while the other stares with downcast eyes in an absorbed manner. Thus the figures instigate reactions from us as if we were situated in a real scene. Hockney has said, “we do not look at the world from a distance, we are in it.”[7] By pushing the limits of perspective and including us in his multiple points of view, Hockney ensures that, as spectators, we are there, in his images.

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[1] Hockney, David. Hockney by Hockney (p.9)

[2] Hockney, David. Hockney by Hockney (p.130)

[3] Clothier, Peter. Hockney (p.130)

[4] Hockney, David. That’s the Way I see It (p.103)

[5] Hockney, David. That’s the Way I see It (p.104)

[6] Hockeny, David. Hockney by Hockney (p.9)

[7] Hockney, David That’s the Way I See It (p.102)

Hirst Pulls a Trigger

Damien Hirst’s diamond-covered skull, For the Love of God, is at once grotesque and beautiful, superficial and meaningful. However, before elaborating on these curious contradictions, it is paramount to stress Hirst’s ultimate goal with this piece; as he puts it, “I want people to see it and be astounded. I want them to gasp.” He relishes in the shock factor and aims to make a scene. Importantly, what astounds most of the viewers is the preposterous sum of money involved in the making and selling of the skull. The monetary aspect of the work becomes its main “raison d’être”. Thus, any meaningful interpretation of the piece is obscured amidst the commercial commotion, insinuating that the artwork itself is, lamentably, less impressive than its cost.

One could contend that the commercial aspect is significant and should rightly be the chief interest of the piece. It does, after all, explicitly illustrate the capitalist age we live in. Hirst spent an overwhelming sum on something seemingly trivial, as many others do in private. Only he did it boldly, shamelessly, and loudly. The audience’s response, in itself, reveals a consumerist society. We look at a skull, covered in 8,601 diamonds, and what primarily resonates is the cost. Although the skull functions primarily as a symbol and embracement of the capitalist art market, it possesses mocking- though not necessarily condemning- undertones towards consumerist society.

For the Love of God engages with superficial notions of beauty and their ironic relationship to death. To paraphrase a quote, before the making of the skull, in I Want to Spend the Rest of My Life Everywhere, With Everyone, One to One, Always, Forever, Now, Hirst criticizes humans for excessively caring about their complexions since they are ultimately destined to decompose into skulls. This futile preoccupation with appearance can readily be applied to his piece. The symbol of our death stares straight at us, yet due to the striking diamonds that adorn it, the violent image of death is instantly appeased. The diamonds function as a mask, a farce that embodies the shallowness that Hirst cites earlier- we stride through life embellishing ourselves only to reach our doom. Indeed, as one observes the skull and its unsettling smile, the diamonds shine in all their glory; they deepen into the crevices of the skull’s sockets as if in two eternal chambers, mocking our death, for we will perish, those polished teeth will eventually rot, and the diamonds will live forever.

However, it is important to note that skulls have become an icon in the fashion world and that diamonds are prominent symbols of conspicuous consumerism. Although Hirst claims that he was inspired by Aztec skulls, he evidently borrowed two popular items from mass culture that in turn make the criticism detailed above uphold little effect upon the viewers. Considering that the skull image has been obsessively used in contemporary fashion, we have accordingly become indifferent to its inherent pathos.

For the Love of God manipulates the skull with diamonds like a fashion item, so that it appears more as a commodity and less as an actual human remnant. Ironically, for someone so invested in the theme of death, Hirst employs the one symbol that no longer strikes his audiences with the idea of death. In some of Hirst’s other works he conveys the subject of death more effectively. In the past he has explained, “you have to find that universal trigger. Everyone’s scared of glass, everyone’s scared of sharks. Everyone loves butterflies.”[1] If the skull is to function as a “universal trigger,” it triggers the face of consumerism. But maybe that was his intention, after all.

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[1] Hirst, Damien. I Want to Spend the Rest of My Life Everywhere, With Everyone, One to One, Always, Forever, Now

watercolors

I've been doing watercolors based on photographs that I've taken of friends and of myself. This is one I did while still living in Paris.

In August

It's the not-seeing through hot eyes.
It's an August large cloud that dries bitter-white,
Heavily, in the cheeks.

If I look only to the sky
I can clear my sight along with it.

My dark woozy shadow scuttles beneath the skin

And splits, thick, from my sugary throat
(The warmth, the silk, and ice-cream)

And lays still, holding onto swollen ankles.

Off I say, off. I enjoy being unforgiving

Because I’m hungry for something

Other.

I'm all slippery skin, ballooning eyes,
Murmuring mmmm yellow.

I turn to blank to white. A skeleton

Presses up against me, bony and hard,

Questioning me for what I have done.

It’s the spatter of rain, the old sick

Man outside. It’s the heat

That snakes into me and murmurs

The British Word concluded : Banksy

British Museum, London




Tate Gallery, London

Of all the artists discussed, the graffiti artist Banksy is the least explicitly personal in his work. His language is not confessional. However, by publicly branding his own “name,” Banksy makes his own identity a monument. Thus there exists that tension seen in the previous artists’ work where the artist claims to be more anonymous and detached from his/her words than s/he actually is.

However different, Banksy’s language is as violently blunt, accusatory and tortured as the other artists in its outcries against social oppression and corruption. In one piece he depicts a man being brutally attacked by police officers. Behind them one reads: “I fought the law and I w…” – the words drip like blood and are cut off right where it would spell ‘won,’ an aesthetic that heightens the suppression, the fight.

Banksy likewise often attacks publicity companies. One of his pieces consists of a starved, poor child surrounded by flies wearing a Burger King paper hat. As Wright puts it, “many of Banksy’s pieces…thumb their noses at authority and urge us not to swallow the usual lines fed us by politicians and big business” (51). Banksy’s work explicitly denounces public authorities that pierce the landscape with their messages, that manipulate our visual associations. Thus, he reveals a consciousness of our semiotic reading as he implies his belief that those “who control sign systems control the construction of reality” (Chandler).

With Banksy, we see again the importance of the aesthetics of the word, of its role as a visual element. His words often resemble that of billboards, public signs, subvertisers and political activists. Thus he draws on public signage, “taking something [that is] accessible to all” (Wright, 52). However, his images supply the viewer with contrary content, as with the Burger King image. Indeed, Banksy has compiled a witty semiotic body of work, where he lends a new “signified” to each “signifier.”

A lot of Banksy’s critique is done in a tongue-in-cheek and ironic language. An ideal example of this is his work targeted towards the pretensions of the art gallery and museum. In the past he has stenciled “Mind the Crap” on the entrance steps of the Tate Modern. He has likewise once put up on the walls of the British museum “a hoax cave painting of a stone age man” with an explication in the style of a museum label (Guardian). He critiques the exhibition culture when he ends his placard with: “The majority [of this art] is destroyed by zealous municipal officials who fail to recognise the artistic merit and historical value of daubing on walls.” Characteristically British in its satirical language, this piece, like Perry’s, calls into question the limits defined by the art establishment. Banky’s work thus exemplifies the British artistic desire to communicate in plain, direct language that breaks the boundaries defined by social authorities.

Banksy, Grayson Perry, R.B. Kitaj, Tracey Emin and David Hockney thereby all resemble Hogarth in their choice to deliver their personal views through words, which are in turn used to interpret or twist images. Both are in dialogue with one another, the words generally providing the content and the images providing the context. However, importantly, without the context (the images), the words would be largely drained of their meaning. Thus these artists’ work relies on a semiotic reading.

Beginning with Hogarth, there has been a trend in subject matter in British art– authority and social suppression, the self and society. Such subject matter not only endures, but is also intensified in artists’ work today. Over time, as British artists have gained more liberty in their expression, their language has become increasingly forthright and cheeky.

The British Word continued : Grayson Perry

The Names of Flowers (1994)

Saint, Satin, Satan (1999)

Childhood Trauma Manifesting Itself in Later Life (1992)

Mad Kid’s Bedroom Wall (1996)

We’ve Found the Body of Your Child (2000)

Driven Man (2000)

Sunset through Net Curtains

Like Kitaj, Grayson Perry belongs to that trend of English picturing that tells stories, that contains a narrative weave. He uses the word as a way to reveal social and personal truths; the word brutally strips down reality, revealing a world of violent and insecure human beings. In another common trend, Grayson Perry’s narratives involve a slow and changing reading. Their often-bright colors and gleaming glaze have the power to deceive. Sunset through Net Curtains has the very palette of a lovely sunset in all its rosy and yellow shades. One is drawn to the swelling flowers and the organic forms. However, as one looks closer, one begins to decode a plethora of disturbing references: the book that an old man reads is entitled ‘slave owner’; the words that a man types on the computer include ‘torture me to death.’ Though Perry’s figures can sometimes speak for themselves simply in their tortured demeanor, at other times, words are transformative in their labels.

Perry’s work is likewise deceiving in its choice of form; like Emin’s quilts, there is an explicit irony in his choice of pottery for disturbing subject matter. Pottery is generally viewed as something modest, delicate and “innocent” (Wilson, 75). Perry’s work partially arises from a desire to challenge the art establishment’s influence in such associations, and its essential “control” of artistic “sign systems” (Chandler). As Boot explains, “a strict distinction is drawn in England between ceramics – as one of the crafts – and the fine arts. The two fields are treated… very differently there, and the distinction is deeply rooted in English art education and the world of the galleries and museums” (71). Perry perceives such distinctions as pretentious, and mocks them. He manifests these views when he ironically writes on his pot, Peasant Ware (1990): ‘Seek not great wisdom for this is but simple peasant ware, there is no great art here.’ He likewise amusingly and satirically places “stamps on his pots in accordance with the artistic rules [that look] like the stamp of some old porcelain factory” but that really spell out ‘wanker.’” (Boot, 72). Indeed, Perry approaches the art establishment as another “accepted [hierarchy] [that he must call] into question” (Wilson, 85, 86).

This distinctly British, ironic, tongue-in-cheek character extends itself when Perry appropriates comical devices and pop culture imagery to make violent, accusatory commentary. He encourages a semiotic reading, for the viewer is forced to engender new associations among rather disparate elements. Driven Man (2000), as several other pots, gives voice to the female, showing how her image is put on display and is abused of. The woman appears to be trapped within the popular imagery (such as the large billboards of women) and the men and their cars that surround them. Thus what at first may appear as playful, colorful imagery of pop culture, cars and attractive lettering of magazines and newspapers is entirely transformed. The same clash in aesthetics is seen in We’ve Found the Body of Your Child (2000), which is scattered with bubbles of words – such as ‘you fucking little shit’ and ‘all men are bastards’ – which resemble comic book speech bubbles done in child-like handwriting. Here, the infantile aesthetics of the lettering adds another layer of meaning as it suggests a corruption of innocence. Interestingly, “his manner of drawing…has been described by Perry as that of an adolescent sixth former: both direct and illustrational” (Wilson, 85). We see again that old British desire to communicate “directly,” which is in turn accomplished through a bold outpour of words, illustrations and a carefully meditated style.

Importantly, Perry, as evidenced, draws on the signage of popular culture and familiar contexts, like other artists have, as subjects for his critique. His pots have a social conscience as they address male dominance, war, class distinctions, murder cases and the corruption in social values. Boot rightly articulates, “Perry holds up a mirror to his contemporaries as Hogarth had done to those of his time” (74).

Much of Perry’s work, however, employs the personal and confessional language characteristic of British art today. Mad Kid’s Bedroom Wall (1996), for example, has phrases written in the first person, which appear to refer to Perry’s own life: “I was a mad kid and now I ain’t. I got out ’coz I could paint.” Relevantly, however, much of his work previously discussed, which addressed wider social concerns, are clearly affected by Perry’s personal topics of childhood trauma and transvestitism. Thus, in a way, Perry, as Emin, Kitaj and Hockney, transforms personal experience into a greater monument, as something applied to society at large.