DIFFERENT ANGLES O
n his first trip to China in 1981, David Hockney traveled throughout the country with poet Stephen Spender, doing drawings and taking photos for the book China Diary, that documented his trip.
His recent visit was much shorter, with the artist spending only a few days in Beijing for the opening of his exhibition, The Arrival of Spring.
The 78-year-old artist had a busy schedule during his visit earlier this month, giving dozens of interviews and two lectures at universities.
The opening of Hockney’s exhibition on April 18, saw crowds of art lovers gathering outside the gallery Pace Beijing to get a glimpse of the artist’s “iPad art”. News of his exhibition had quickly spread via WeChat, the Chinese messaging service platform.
Hockney’s talk at the Central Academy of Fine Arts created quite a stir. The subject — perspective should be reversed — drew on his lifelong fascination with points of view. The auditorium was packed and the talk was broadcast live to three other crowded venues at the school.
During the two-hour talk, Hockney, wearing a red shirt, a blue sweater and visible red socks, shared his obsession with perspective and how he presents different perspectives all in one painting, his “photo collage” works, or multipleframe videos.
The high point came when he took questions from the audience, most of whom would not have been born around the time of the artist’s last China visit. There was a feeling of excitement among the audience. A girl stood to ask a question, but overwhelmed by the moment, managed only to communicate in lengthy, bumpy
Art Beat
English, before blurting: “We know you are gay ...”.
Hockney played it cool, even searching his pockets to find a cigarette before answering the last question. He lit the smoke, igniting laughter and a murmur of excitement throughout the auditorium.
Hockney continues to explore his obsession with the Yorkshire landscape in The Arrival of Spring. The exhibition is a smaller version of the show of the same name held at Pace New York last year. On display are dozens of drawings Hockney drew on an iPad. The artist, who was born in Bradford, Yorkshire, in the United Kingdom, captured the small changes from winter to spring in drawings which he did in 2011. Sensitive emotions and discerning observation underlie his repeated portrayal of stretching country roads, awakening plants and blossoming flowers.
Two giant video installations show the greenery and snowy scenery of Woldgate, a town in East Yorkshire. Each includes 18 screens that project dozen of views shot by different camer- as in a moving car. Hockney attempted to reproduce what people actually see when their eyeballs move and change perspectives.
One of his inspirations is the Chinese scroll painting. He first saw scroll paintings at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1983. He was amazed at the approach to “changing perspectives in motion”.
“I’m interested in everything that makes pictures,” he says.
Hockney discovered drawing on his iPhone in late 2008. He told a reporter in 2010 that he drew flowers every day on his iPhone, sending them to friends so they got fresh flowers every morning; he said the gadget made his flowers last longer than fresh ones.
“When I paint, I feel like I’m only 30. That was what Picasso said. And I feel the same way. I feel down when I don’t paint, because I don’t know what to do other than to paint.”
Some critics have suggested that Hockney’s works produced during his return to Yorkshire are not equal in creativity to his earlier works, especially after his move to Los Angeles in the 1970s.
“I’m still quite an active artist. I don’t live in the 1960s or ’70s. I’m living the moment and all artists should be the same,” he says. He is categorized as a member of the Pop Art movement, a label he rejects.
The artist is currently preparing for a upcoming solo exhibition in London. He will display some 60 portraits — he says only two or three of them have previously been exhibited.
His photo collages will also be there. He displayed some slides from his latest productions at the talk in the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing.
“I talk a lot about photography ... but photography documents, in a flat, bored way and provides a single perspective,” he says. He showed a slide at CAFA that read, “Photography came out of painting ... and it is now going back to it.”
He pieces together photos taken from multiple angles to form new pictures. It generates an unusual yet impressive visual effect by which he informs the viewers of the possibilities of perspective.
“One can always find in the traditional things (like painting) something that is essential and can carry on ... There is always a new perspective to see the world. Just look how Matisse and Picasso made the world so interesting.” Contact the writer at linqi@chinadaily.com.cn