David Hockney has long been one of my favourite artists, and I just couldn’t miss his new and unusual exhibition in London. “Bigger & Closer (not smaller & further away)” is an immersive visual experience which surrounds the visitor with Hockney themes tracing his work over sixty years.
The exhibition takes place at the Lightroom in London’s newly regenerated King’s Cross area and runs until December 3. I found the experience moving and compelling and, if you are in town, it is something you should not miss.
Acclaimed
Hockney, one of the world’s most acclaimed and popular living artists, has used this extraordinary four-storey-high innovative venue in Kings Cross to take the audience on a personal journey through his art. The show features iconic paintings alongside some rarely seen pieces and some newly created work. His life-long fascination with the possibilities of new media is given vibrant expression in a show that invites visitors to see the world through his eyes.
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 ‘drawing with a camera’. He captures the passing of time in his Polaroid collages and the joy of spring on his iPad, and shows us why only paint can properly convey the hugeness of the Grand Canyon.
The Wagner Drive
We join him on his audiovisual Wagner Drive, roaring up into the San Gabriel Mountains, and into the opera house using 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.
“The world is very, very beautiful if you look at it, but most people don’t look very much. They scan the ground in front of them, so they can walk, they don’t really look at things incredibly well, with an intensity. I do.”
David Hockney, from the soundtrack of ‘Bigger & Closer (not smaller & further away’
Three-year collaboration
The show is the result of three years’ close collaboration between David Hockney and the creators of Lightroom. It will be the first in a repertoire of original shows, made with leading artists and innovators, aspiring to be visually astonishing, alive with sound and rich in new perspectives.
Lightroom, a joint venture between 59 Productions and London Theatre Company, is located in King’s Cross on Lewis Cubitt Square, adjacent to Coal Drops Yard and Central St Martin’s. It was designed by Haworth Tompkins as a sister space to the award-winning Bridge Theatre near Tower Bridge.
Tickets for the exhibition, which is open from now until 3 December 2023, are from £25 for adults and from £15 for students. Visit the website to make your booking.
More images from Mike Evans (Ricoh GRIII and iPhone 14 Pro Max)
You might also be interested in…
The Frameless exhibition at London’s Marble Arch explores the history of art through a powerful and emotional whole-room visual experience, enabling you to feel you are walking inside the 42 featured masterpieces.
The Frameless experience takes you on a journey through four distinctly different galleries, each with its own state-of-the-art technology and its individual musical score.
Frameless is an unusual and compelling experience and worth visiting before it ends.
Signing up for the Macfilos newsletter
The SUBSCRIBE button (below) is now working again. If you have recently been unable to register for the Macfilos newsletter, please try again now. We apologise for the error which crept in during the recent site redesign. If you have any other queries or wish to contact us, use the CONTACT button.
Dear Mike,
what an incredible report about a stunning exhibition. Thanks for sharing that with us.
Greets
Dirk
Thank you, Dirk. It’s definitely worth a visit if you find yourself in London before December.
Brilliant stuff. I know people have poo-poo’ed his work using Polaroids and iPads but it provides him and us with a fresh way of seeing landscapes. I still remember being moved by his “Woldgate” collection which I saw in Saltaire a few years ago, as the pictures he had developed were along an old Roman road that I used to bike to grammar school, not long after the Romans had left Yorkshire for good.
These images make me realize that I’m due a trip to England before long to see this and the McCartney exhibition.
I hadn’t considered that aspect, but the transition of the seasons on the Roman road is a very symbolic part of the exhibition. I image, though, that this exhibition will move around. I don’t even know if London was the first port of call. But there is so much involved that I wouldn’t be surprised to find it being presented in other major cities around the world.
Mike
I am a big fan of David Hockney, his use of vibrancy is something that you absorb, but just can’t photograph. Our surroundings really aren’t that colour (green in this case), but with the light of the sun at certain angles and at certain times of a given day, at certain spots on a road, path or hillside etc., one is imbued with that kind feeling. Art that one can feel, as well as see! My partner and I always make a beeline for anything that he does in London.
I seem to remember him making something similar using yellows and oranges some time back; https://i.pinimg.com/736x/d8/57/58/d85758a363ddf1855d9772687fc82065.jpg
I think there is maybe one photographer that got close to having that effect photographically, namely Saul Leiter, when he did his colour experiments in the 1950’s; http://hyperbole.es/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/condensation_ultra_3840x2160_hd-wallpaper-787883.jpg
Anyway, thanks for the heads-up to you and Mike, we will beetle along there asap.
Thanks, Stephen. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it. The surrounding area, behind King’s Cross station and across the canal, is now very attractive. Have a look at the gasometers which have been turned into expensive flats.