by For over 50 years, David Hockney has been a dominant force in contemporary art. A new career-spanning show at the Honolulu Museum of Art brings the artist back to Hawaii for the first time in years, with an exhibition of more than 100 pieces in various media documenting Hockney’s journey from the 1950s through the pandemic years.
“We were drawn to different time periods, and making sure we were representing earlier time periods, to later and other media – the photo collages, the photos of drawings, and iPad, iPhone, and other digital drawing, ” said Katherine Love, co-curator of the show with Catherine Whitney, the museum’s director of curatorial affairs.
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The Homa exhibition is a large, well-organized show, expertly arranged on walls of red, blue and white, leading viewers on multiple journeys through Hockney’s ever-changing use of visual form. Broken into six sections, it begins with some of Hockney’s earliest works, working his way up to digital paintings he made on iPhone and iPad during the pandemic. One of his organizing principles is the multiple dichotomies that Love and Whitney have noted in Hockney’s work.
“One thing we really wanted to play with in the dualities is the idea of inside and outside,” Whitney said. “There is also calm and tension, and balance and calm. There are only so many contrasting binaries in the work throughout his career. He has an incredible way of juxtaposing opposites in a celebratory way.”
David Hockney: A Perspective Should Be Reversed, Prints from the Collections of Jordan D Schnitzer and His Family Foundation focus on the idea that Hockney, now 86, has been pursuing for years – a perspective that is evolving as usually cultivated in western art. This can be seen in his pioneering works with Polaroid pictures, where he made huge collages out of Polaroids, building scenes with multiple perspectives embedded in them. For Hockney, this is heavier for how we see reality than a picture that is just one point off. It also speaks to Hockney’s infatuation with integrating the latest technology into his artistic output, which viewers can see during the exhibition. “Even though he’s experimenting with new technology and always trying new things, he’s always aware of what’s happened in the past,” Whitney said. “And he’s always interested in learning more about history and incorporating that into his work – which is always moving further.”
In the painting Perspective Should be Reversed – a typically strong cross-referenced feast of individuals from Hockney’s universe, miniatures of the artist’s paintings, and a variety of different vanishing points – Hockney leaves a copy of Picasso and Truth by TJ Clark just above cooperation where it is difficult to misplace him, indicating his debt to the great Englishman. In fact, one of the strengths of this show is how skillfully it resolves many of the artistic connections between the two.
“Hockney has always been fascinated by Picasso and how he broke away from what was expected representationally,” said Love. “Cubism has done real experimental work to think about the use of space in different ways. Hockney is very interested in that same idea of how we perceive the world around us.”
As part of the Picasso theme, the Honolulu show includes two of Hockney’s Polaroid collages, in which he pioneered his ideas of bringing cubism into the field of photography. “One of Hockney’s problems with traditional photography is that it’s static,” Love said. “But people are used to seeing around the world – we can move our eyes. So how can you translate that experience into a picture?” Numerous later works from the 2010s extend the ideas he made with these Polaroid collages – for example, some see the artist alleging his collage craft in photorealistic offerings where Hockney’s tables, chairs and hanging canvases allow multiple perspectives , and doppelgangers of himself and multiply other intimates.
“It’s kind of a constant play with reality,” Love said. “What is reality, what is perception, what is assumed, what is known, what is created? What can I do to see you?”
Perspective Should Be Reversed also includes a satisfying selection of works that Hockney has made exclusively on iPhones and iPads, using his fingers and styluses. Among these are many that Hockney has made of the English countryside over the years, including some of his popular works Woldgate, in which the artist spent months carefully describing the arrival of spring through many drawings. In these and other late works, Hockney has bright colors and complex lines. “Some of the late pieces, those late Normandy landscapes and the rain on the pond, are amazing,” Love said. “I’m a colourist, so I’m a sucker for anything bright and brilliant, which is why the Woldgate pieces really pleased me.”
Later works include standouts such as Landscape with Shadows, a dazzling, cube-inflected feast of colors, textures, and perspectives, and Rain on the Pond, which conveys a solemn mood and includes countless raindrops that explode beautifully in rings on the title pond. Although not as substantial or innovative as the previous work in the show, these pieces are very enjoyable, and offer insight into the current interests of a major figure in the art world.
Perspective Should Be Reversed draws on the collection of Jordan Schnitzer, member of a wealthy Oregon family, one of the state’s leading real estate developers, and longtime arts philanthropist. Schnitzer’s collection of Hockney’s work goes back many years, and the artist is one of his most numerous holdings. “I’m very happy to bring the work here,” Schnitzer said. “The collection gives a museum like this the chance to access the best, biggest and brightest artist.” In total, the Jordan Schnitzer family foundation has helped organize over 180 exhibitions.
Perspective Should Be Reversed is a boon to Honolulu’s vibrant art museum – which has done a great job of bringing a variety of contemporary art voices to the mid-Pacific – and should not be missed by island residents and visitors. . . “This is probably the biggest print show ever to be exclusively from Hockney,” Whitney said, “so it’s very exciting. It’s great to show works from 1954 until 2022. We’re really excited to have it.”
