‘Hockney’ (2014) is the definitive exploration of David Hockney – painter, draughtsman, printmaker, stage designer, photographer, and an important contributor to the Pop art movement of the 1960s – considered one of the most influential British artists of the 20th century.
Hockney, for the first time, has given access to his personal archive of photographs and film, and a raft of recent interviews from the man himself, as well as from fellow artists like Ed Ruscha. The result, an unparalleled visual diary, chronicling Hockney’s long life and vast career.
The documentary charts Hockney’s early life in working-class Bradford, where his love for pictures was developed through his admiration for cinema, through to his time at art school and subsequent relocation to New York and Los Angeles where his life-long struggle to escape labels (‘queer’, ‘working-class’, ‘figurative artist’) was fully realised. With these revealing snapshots of his life, we are given an insight into the man behind the brush (the fax machines, colour photocopier, as well as the iPhone and iPad). Hockney offers theories about art, the universe and almost everything else, revealing a hidden self-interrogation that gives his renowned optimistic images their unexpected edge and attack.
From his infamously sexy, homoerotic California pools series to the devastating effect HIV had on his life and many of his friends, ‘Hockney’ shows us how the artist has an ongoing desire to keep making work. It impeccably conveys the passion behind his art and the unique way he views the world. Having screened at London Film Festival and Outfest to rapturous audiences, Australian audiences will be equally enamoured by this cinematic gem.
‘Hockney’ will be screening on Saturday 27 February at Event Cinemas, George Street Sydney, as part of the Mardi Gras Film Festival, presented by queer screen.
Top: ‘Hockney’, film still
Middle: David Hockney painting Woldgate Before Kilham (2007). Photograph: Jean-Pierre Goncalves de Lima
Bottom: ‘Hockney’ trailer
