David Hockney Exposed
The Artist Talks About Art and Life on Film
David Hockney is no stranger to film or photography. Whether posing for it or wielding it, the camera has long been the artist’s ally. From his rise to fame in the swinging scene of London in the 1960s, Hockney embraced new media strategically and wholeheartedly. Like many of his contemporaries, such as Andy Warhol or Ed Ruscha, Hockney believed photography and video were mediums that could be used to explore another avenue of art. For example, think of Hockney‘s photo collages of the 1980s, or even his recent drawings and paintings created with an iPad.
Just as importantly, the artists of the ’60s also used new media for the creation of a persona, essentially becoming inseparable from their art. Warhol had his debauched Factory, robotic voice, and silver wigs. Roy Lichtenstein played preppy and polite, like a schoolboy from his comic book paintings. Ruscha jokingly looked like the macho California stud, ironically recalling Hollywood bad boys and hotrod culture. However, Hockney perfected his own look by embodying London’s Carnaby Street: dying his hair blonde, donning his iconic circular eyeglasses, and wearing mod, dandyish suits. All of these artists got in front of the camera, and in doing so, they created a cosmology and a lifestyle around their own artistic vision.
With Hockney‘s retrospective on its final stop at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, we thought it would be a good idea to highlight this iconoclastic (and very public) artist with his various video recordings. Speaking about his life, painting, and photography, Hockney is a radiant stream of creativity and witty intelligence. Ranging from an introspective interview to a campy ’70s movie trailer to the preview of his newly-opened retrospective at the Met, David Hockney‘s mind is as expansive as his art. We hope you enjoy these videos, new and old, as much as we do.
