David Hockney: Bigger & Closer (not smaller & further away)
Using large-scale projection in a remarkable new space, David Hockney takes us on a personal journey through sixty years of his art.
Lightroom鈥檚 vast walls and revolutionary sound system enable us to experience the world through Hockney鈥檚 eyes.
His life-long fascination with the possibilities of new media is given vibrant expression in a show that invites us to look more closely, more truly and more joyously.
In a cycle of six themed chapters, with a specially composed score by Nico Muhly and a commentary by the artist himself, Hockney reveals his process to us. His voice is in our ears as we watch him experimenting with perspective, using photography as a way of 鈥榙rawing with a camera鈥�, capturing the passing of time in his polaroid collages and the joy of spring on his iPad, and showing us why only paint can properly convey the hugeness of the Grand Canyon. We join him on his audio-visual Wagner Drive, roaring up into the San Gabriel Mountains, and into the opera house by means of animated re-creations of his stage designs.
From LA to Yorkshire, and up to the present day in Normandy, the show is an unprecedented opportunity to spend time in the presence of one of the great popular geniuses of the art world still innovating, still creating beauty and awe.
鈥淭he world is very very beautiful if you look at it, but most people don鈥檛 look very much. They scan the ground in front of them so they can walk, they don鈥檛 really look at things incredibly well, with an intensity. I do.鈥�
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Using large-scale projection in a remarkable new space, David Hockney takes us on a personal journey through sixty years of his art.
Lightroom鈥檚 vast walls and revolutionary sound system enable us to experience the world through Hockney鈥檚 eyes.
His life-long fascination with the possibilities of new media is given vibrant expression in a show that invites us to look more closely, more truly and more joyously.
In a cycle of six themed chapters, with a specially composed score by Nico Muhly and a commentary by the artist himself, Hockney reveals his process to us. His voice is in our ears as we watch him experimenting with perspective, using photography as a way of 鈥榙rawing with a camera鈥�, capturing the passing of time in his polaroid collages and the joy of spring on his iPad, and showing us why only paint can properly convey the hugeness of the Grand Canyon. We join him on his audio-visual Wagner Drive, roaring up into the San Gabriel Mountains, and into the opera house by means of animated re-creations of his stage designs.
From LA to Yorkshire, and up to the present day in Normandy, the show is an unprecedented opportunity to spend time in the presence of one of the great popular geniuses of the art world still innovating, still creating beauty and awe.
鈥淭he world is very very beautiful if you look at it, but most people don鈥檛 look very much. They scan the ground in front of them so they can walk, they don鈥檛 really look at things incredibly well, with an intensity. I do.鈥�
Artists on show
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Now, Hockney, 85, has embraced digital technology on a much larger scale to create 鈥淏igger & Closer (Not Smaller & Further Away)鈥� 鈥� an immersive spectacular that opens on Wednesday at Lightroom, a new London arts venue, and runs through June 4.
A maze of masterful installations engulfs you in a singular and complex mind. Elsewhere, David Hockney does immersion his own way
鈥楧avid Hockney: Bigger & Closer (not smaller & further away)鈥� is now open at London鈥檚 Lightroom (until 4 June 2023)
Your guide to the best London art exhibitions, and those around the UK in April 2023 as chosen by the Wallpaper* arts desk
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