John Moores 2010 call for entries is now open and will run until 19 February 2010.

The John Moores 2010 – Contemporary Painting Prize, which is a biennial event based in The Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, which was set up in typical Liverpool style by Sir John Moores in concern at London’s increasing domination in the national arts scene. The most important aspect of the competition is that it is open to anyone living in the UK, this means that keen amateurs can compete and ultimately win a prize of £25,000 in a competition that has been entered by artists such as David Hockney and Peter Doig in the past.

The final image has to be submitted by the 5th March 2008.

This year’s jury consists of Gary Hume, Alison Watt, Ged Quinn, Goshka Macuga and Sir Norman Rosenthal.

In 2010 a first prize of £25,000 will be awarded along with four further prizes, each of £2500. In addition, the winner of the popular visitors’ choice prize of £2010, will be announced towards the close of the JM2010 exhibition.

There is an entry fee of £25.

On the occasion of the publication of his braided biographical volumes, ‘Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees: Thirty Years of Conversations with Robert Irwin” and “True to Life: Twenty-Five Years of Conversations with David Hockney,” longtime New Yorker contributor Lawrence Weschler describes what it has been like, lo these many years, to be ponging back and forth between these two giants of contemporary art, who disagree about almost everything, in the profoundest of ways, and yet have never actually spoken with each other.

When Fountainheads Collide
Lawrence Weschler on Robert Irwin & David Hockney
Kellen Auditorium 66 5th Avenue, NYC
7:00 p.m. on Wednesday, December 9th
Free and Open to the Public

Peter getting out of Nick’s pool, acrylic on canvas, by David Hockney, 1966

(via Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool)

In 1966 Hockney travelled to Los Angeles for the second time. Greatly attracted by the sunny climate and relaxed atmosphere of West Coast America, he began to record the lifestyle there in his work. He went on to produce a series of paintings based on the theme of the swimming pool.

Here, Hockney’s friend Peter Schlesinger is depicted climbing out of the swimming pool of Nick Wilder, a Los Angeles gallery owner. The painting is a composite view. Schlesinger did not actually model in the pool; the pose derives from a snapshot of him leaning against his MG sports car. The white border and square format of the painting are reminiscent of the Polaroid prints Hockney used as studies for the composition. Source.

I’M AT THE LEGENDARY HOTEL ELYSÉE, and if someone told me it was 1945, I would believe them.

The 15-story, 103-room landmark is very Old New York. I’m loving my sweet room on the 8th floor, with its blue-and-white striped wallpaper, chintz swag curtains, gilded mirrors, and Chinoiserie lamps. No two rooms are alike here; that’s one of the signatures of the place, which has had a rep for arty eccentricity since it opened in 1926.

This is the New York of Ben Hecht and Charles McArthur, Joe DiMaggio and Tallulah Bankhead, Maria Callas and Vladimir Horowitz, Tennessee Williams and Mary McCarthy. All lived here for a time, along with the Barrymores, Marlon Brando, Ava Gardner, Harold Robbins, Jimmy Breslin — a ridiculously long list of writers and theater people who appreciated the Elysée’s low-key elegance and discretion.

I’d so much rather be here than in some soulless Marriott or too-trendy Lower East Side hotel. Last night I met my friend and former colleague Harriet Bell (she edited my book, Mid-Century Modern, back in the ’80s — in fact, the whole thing was her idea) for martinis and Manhattans (what else?) in the hotel’s atmospheric Monkey Bar, with its wraparound mural of cavorting humanoid monkeys.

At the moment, I’m in the Elysee’s breakfast room, surrounded by voices speaking British and American English, Italian, and French. I’m not surprised the place attracts European visitors. Harriet, who came up to check out my accom- modations last night, said the Elysée reminds her of Parisian hotels, “but with bigger rooms.”

I came into “town” yesterday to attend WordCampNYC for users of WordPress, much of which was directed toward developers rather than bloggers and beyond the reaches of my low-tech brain.

So here I am within striking distance of MoMA, Central Park, Bendel’s, and any number of midtown attractions. My plan for today is to see David Hockney’s recent paintings at Pace Wildenstein on 57th Street and find a new handbag at a street stand; we don’t have those in East Hampton. Check-out time is a civilized 1PM. Then I’m heading back on the flying jitney (how does it manage to make the trip in just two hours?), with its equally speedy wi-fi, to my cottage in the woods.

Two weeks just to paint the splash … David Hockney’s A bigger Splash at Nottingham Contemporary. Photograph: David Sillitoe

Joyous, funny and inventive, David Hockney’s early work was his bravest and his best. What better way to launch Britain’s newest art gallery?

Buildings that are big on architecture are often pretty lousy when it comes to showing art. The problem with fancy architects is that they think their buildings are the art. Nottingham Contemporary, which opens on Saturday, happens to be a series of interconnected boxes and a bunker; its entire lower floor is dug into the sandstone cliff on which the building is perched. But it isn’t a boring building, and the galleries are well-proportioned, flexible spaces. Their scale feels good.

The architects Caruso St John, who also built the New Art Gallery in Walsall, recognise that the art isn’t there just to decorate the architecture. Their work is ingenious when it comes to solving the practical problems of the site, and each of the four, top-lit galleries has its own character. One of them is double height, and the skylights themselves are grids of small, white truncated pyramids. These remind me of the “sky rooms” of the artist James Turrell, with each isolated patch of sky a glowing, fugitive rectangle whose light is gently diffused into the building.

As you approach, it takes a while for the building to reveal itself, the interesting way it straddles the scarp, and the ways the exterior and interior flow and interconnect. Patterns from a sample of 19th-century lace decorate the scalloped concrete walls. I am less keen on the lime-and-gold anodised detailing, which makes the building look like a packet of Benson & Hedges.

Read more at The Guardian: The pleasure principle

iHockney iPainter

Painter, print maker, stage designer, photographer and most influential British artist, David Hockney persistently explored British Pop Art, Expressionism, Cubism. The late 60s and early 70s communicated his concepts of naturalism as Hockney was  greatly inspired by ” the way human vision works”. He explored  the technique of Joiners by using Polaroids (Time sync shots) of a single subject  by arranging them into a patchwork composite image. In mid 80s Hockney was commissioned  to draw with the Quantel Paintbox a computer program that allowed the artist to sketch direct onto the monitor screen. His sketches using Quantel were featured on BBC. Hockney was also commissioned to design December 1985 issue of the French  Vogue magazine. The Review’s October 09 issue discusses the new drawings that David Hockney has been making with the Brushes application on his iPhone, including a series of large-scale paintings based on his relationship with technology that will be on view at  PaceWildenstein this fall.  Well … The new iphone art is indeed quite an addiction !! Popular British Designer Paul Smith hosts the upcoming exhibition of Hockney’s early works  http://www.paulsmith.co.uk/news/hockney-christmas-at-willoughby-house,300,PNP.html

While we lived in NY and in a town house apartment, it was sometimes difficult to sneek out so that mum and dad didn’t notice me. That was both good and bad. In one way, it was as if I was lonelier in NY because no one took any notice when I wanedered alone in the alarming streets. With so much space and isolation as in these areas, it’s like people are afraid of being considered alone.

David Hockney’s “A bigger splash”. CA, early 1967.

In NY guys always sneek out of the window and down by the fire escape (ever wondered what those are really for… ?). Here there’s no mum or dad 2 be seen making coffee or picking up the newspaper in the morning, every actual living part of the house are so distant from one another that these guys just seem to want to hang out for an endless time.

A couple of weeks ago I had a guy over that I had to push down into the pool just so that he would run off. It seemed to work.

If you’ve been wondering where trailerpilot has been lately, there are two answers: New York City and working like a dog.

Noodles at Super Taste Restaurant.

My annual late-summer NYC vaykay was pushed back this year due to an unusually-crazy late-summer. A good friend was celebrating her thirtieth and I was long overdue for a visit so off we went. Thursday ruled — I got my Quickly cakes and Super Taste hand-pulled noodles right off the bat — but Friday got off to a rough start as I was robbed by a pickpocket after midnight, who took me for a wad of cash, a monthly MetroCard, and my long-in-the-tooth-but-mightily-beloved G1. Much of the following day was spent with the thorough, kind, and accomodating Detective Young of New York’s 9th Precinct (a tip of the hat to you, sir!). Then, blah blah cancel blah suspend blah yadda claim claim yadda blah please hold, etc. Not the vacation-starter I had in mind.

I saw Temporary Distortion’s fun-to-say, less-to-watch Americana Kamikaze at PS 122, wishing most of the time the narrative and sequencing were as interesting as the production and set design (I want to see it again, exactly the same except with a different script). I saw the new David Hockney paintings at PaceWildenstein, which I tweeted as “Jim Woodring landscapes under Van Gogh skies in Paschke colors” and still feel that’s the best way to describe them, besides almost-overwhelmingly absorbing and inductive of an indescribable joy at the journey of existence.

David Hockney: Paintings 2006-2009 at PaceWildenstein Gallery, New York.

Bill Viola’s Bodies of Light show at James Cohan was also gorgeous and firmed up my goal of being more familiar with his ouevre — with screen resolution, color saturation and flexibility being where they are, technology is inventing an ever-more-perfect palette for his work. A few other shows in the ‘hood caught my eye as well, although I wasn’t overly ambitious on the art-scoping this time around. Walked the High Line from bottom to top — loved it — and ate delicious meals with some of my favorite people in the whole world.

Just before leaving, we were very fortunate to catch wind of, research, and score tickets to Taylor Mac’s The Lily’s Revenge at HERE. Of its many directors was Faye Driscoll, in charge of the dance-based third of its five acts — whiffs of her style as a choreographer for the stage were visible in a “dream ballet” the main characters’ Doppelgängers enact during the nearly-five-hour extravaganza, but more interesting was how she handled the integration of a movement-based subsection into a universe that also includes film, cabaret, musical theater, Midsummer-esque iambic pentameter, high drag, low drag and no drag. If you’re in or near the city between now and November 22, believe the hype and get a ticket.

Back to work.

I was lucky enough to be a fly on the wall for Kurt’s interview with David Hockney last week. It was a revelation to hear him talk about his way of seeing. And I was surprised to learn that he has started painting on his iPhone, using the “Brushes” application, to “paint” lovely little pictures that he then sends off to his friends.

Hockney has a history of successful experiments with new technology. He went into a faxing frenzy during the 1980’s, sending an entire show to the Sao Paolo Biennale in Brazil via the machine. Earlier this year he had an exhibition of work executed on his computer using Photoshop and Graphics Tablet.  But I think the works on his iPhone are especially surprising and delightful.

In fact, I was so thrilled and inspired that I’ve decided to take the leap: henceforth, I will be a Touch Phone painter.

Have you made any art on your iPhone?  We want to see it!   Please post a link to your image in the Comments section.

- Susie Karlowski

I recently received an e-mail from a nice person at Prospect (a British magazine).  The email asked if I’d like to review their magazine.  After being completely flattered, I said, “Of course!”  And then I waited nervously hoping that the magazine was good and that I wouldn’t have to say anything mean about it, because I would.  Oh yes, I would.

But I don’t have to. They grabbed me right off the bat because the c & the t in the title are connected by a little filigree doodad.   I love typography, so that little flourish was a selling point (okay a superficial one, but I liked it immediately).

The “subtitle” of the magazine is “Good Writing About Things That Matter” and it is a totally apt description.  Prospect is a monthly magazine that covers all aspects of society: British, European, American and the world.  And, indeed, the writing is quite good.

In many ways it reminded me of The Walrus, a favorite magazine of mine.  (It’s a weird comparison since The Walrus has only been around for a few years, while Prospect has been around for about 13 (the November issue is number 164, so I’m guessing here), but it’s an apt comparison for its coverage: politics, culture, arts and more.

Because this was a new (to me)  magazine (and because I knew I’d be reviewing it), I decided to read every article.  There were a few that I thought I wouldn’t care much about.  But the writing totally grabbed me.  For instance, the article about Princess Diana (about whom I am indifferent) was fantastic.  It was cynical and funny and totally engaging.  And the same was true for just about every article in the magazine.

Normally I like to have at least two issues to refer to when reviewing.  So there may very well be things about this issue that are different from the others.  So, forgive, please, if I generalize incorrectly.

The first thing I wanted to mention was advertising.  In the magazines I read, I pretty much completely ignore the ads.  I see a picture of a car and I flip the page.  But in a new magazine, especially a foreign magazine, I like to see what’s up for sale.  (I especially like to see ads for products that are unavailable here).  But Prospect is virtually ad-free.  I’m not sure how things work for British magazines and advertising–if like NPR, there is a “sponsor” or two, or if it’s a pay as you go thing.  Anyhow, flipping through, we get a few full page or two page ads in the beginning: BMW, IBM and Baillie Gifford (which I’ve never heard of).  But once you get into the heart of the issue, there’s really no more (well, one for ExxonMobil just before the Letters).  But after that the ads are small and are for web sites that I’ve never heard of (a lot of publishers & small businesses).

The last few pages also have Classifieds Section (like the ones in most of the progressive magazines I read).  And that’s it.  It’s rather refreshing.  (But I guess I’ll have to read Heat to get the fun trashy ads–and yes I only know about Heat from The IT Crowd).

But moving on…

The opening article, In Prospect discusses what’s in the magazine.  This issue has a special section on the upcoming Copenhagen Climate Conference.  I’m not sure if all of the issues have special sections like this (set off in a different color and everything) or if this is a one off.

The thing that I liked immediately about the magazine was the If I Ruled the World Column.  From what I can tell, this is a regular feature of the magazine in which various people tell how they would make things better.  What an interesting concept, especially if the authors are smart (not just celebrities). (Or maybe it’s a regular column by Sam Leith…I’m not quite sure).

Next, there’s the second thing that delighted me: Six Things to Do This Month.  Lots of magazine recommend entertainment to see and do, and it’s interesting to see what kind of taste a new magazine has (while it’s true that these are all things happening in England, you can still judge the taste of the magazine as it applies to your location).  So, they suggest (and gives reasons why you should see): Film (An Education); Art (David Hockney); Music (Martha Wainwright(!)); Painting, Dance and Theatre.  So, even though I won’t be able to do 5 of the 6, I enjoy the artistic taste of the magazine.

This is followed by Political Notes.  It’s a brief article British politics.  While this may not affect me directly, whoever wins the British election will shape the world.  It’s an interesting insight into the politics of the magazine to see what they talk about here.

Next comes Diary (and this reminds me a lot of the opening Walrus pages).  It contains short articles about various things around the world: Media (Giving the newspaper game away in London); Finance (Global finance keeps on drifting eastward) North America (Obama and the Nobel Peace Prize…which offers an insight I had not heard before and one I found quite useful).  And (my friend Rich would have loved this) evidently a monthly column by Brian Eno (!).  I also really enjoyed the “Word of the Month” paragraph. (This month’s was “Dingbat,” a font type that I always talk about in my computer classes).

The Data page presents a few factual tidbits: a chart (about internet use) and a series of facts and quotes from various sources (In Detroit the average sale price of a house is $7,100 (from The Wall Street Journal)).  And, my favorite: Didier Drogba studied accountancy (from Didier Drogba’s Facebook page).

Next comes Letters and Opinions.  The first piece discusses the option of diminishing the power of British arms producers (to save the budget for the military).  The second encourages Bill Gates (and the Gates Foundation) to go after HIV like they did Netscape and wipe it off the map (great parallel there).  And then two articles: one about the Soviets and one about suffragettes which show personal insights into these issues.

From Our Correspondents has stories from across the globe.  It’s always embarrassing when you have to go abroad to hear about your own country, but the article about Republican Eric Cantor was completely enlightening to me.  The other articles abroad this month were from Brussels and China.

Then some of the major articles come up.  The first is about President Obama and his failure to heal party divisions in the country (despite his political successes).  There’s a second one about Obama’s foreign policy.  In the States, we’re stuck hearing the same talking points over and over again (just watch the Daily Show to see how many media people use the same exact phrase over and over.)  So it’s refreshing to have a thoughtful new perspective on something so close to home.

The rest of the big articles are what I love about monthly newsmagazines and why they are so much better than weeklies.  First off, if you need news now, you go to the internet, there’s no question.  But the problem with a weekly is that they often get stuck reporting about what’s happening NOW, THIS WEEK! whether it is significant or not (balloon boy?).  A monthly magazine, on the other hand, may not be current, but it can always be significant.

So, an article about Angela Merkel and the state of German elections is timely without being up to the minute.  But it was wonderfully informative (and check out the awesome election campaign poster graphic they included–the German reads: “We have more  to offer” (with that delightful shot of Merkel’s cleavage).  Then came the article on Princess Diana (which was actually about her family’s attempt to cash in on her at her birth home).  It was a first person narrative and was quite fascinating (and which I’m sure the Spencer’s didn’t appreciate).

The third one was possibly the most interesting article I have read in a while, period.  “How to really hug a hoodie” discusses an attempt in Glasgow to use a controversial American technique to reduce gang violence.  First off, why hadn’t I ever heard of this technique being used in America?  And second, it is clearly effective, so why are people shying away from it elsewhere.  This article was simply fantastic.  It’s available here.  Check it out!

Then comes the Arts section.  Now, clearly I love the arts, so it was a treat to see nearly half the magazine devoted to them.  But what I liked about them was the (in context) serious nature of the articles.  Why Britain Can’t Do The Wire looks at the struggles of writers in dealing with the BBC.  This very issue was brought up in the recent Monty Python documentary.  They complained about how much the BBC hierarchy has changed in the last 40 years, and how hard it is to do anything creative there.  Now, I of course love BBC comedies and think that many of them are fresh and better than what we can do here.  But I don’t know a lot about their dramas (they compare The Wire to Life on Mars, but I thought the UK Life on Mars was brilliant while the US version was rather flat.  Nevertheless, the points they makes are really strong.

Another TV article looked at the gruesomeness of current TV medical dramas.  They compared the calm and mellow medical examinations of Quincy to shows like NCIS, and how we aren’t squeamish about intense medical investigations anymore (or maybe we are, but we can’t turn away).

Sporting life covers sports.  I don’t really care about sports, but (and this will tell you how out of touch with sports I am), I was interested to read it because it told me about Mark Buehrle’s perfect game (and DeWayne Wise’s amazing catch in said game.  I used to watch and play sports a lot when I was a kid so I am well versed in the language and can totally appreciate magnificence in sports, I just don’t care about it).  So, thanks for that, anyhow (I watched the catch online and it was pretty amazing).  Although I do like reading about English football, for some reason, even if I don’t know anything about the teams.

The Arts & Books section features a number of great reviews.  And the reviews are fascinating for many reasons.  But first, the section opens with a print of The Suicide of Lucretia by Lucas Cranach the Elder.  This very painting was featured prominently in a Warehouse 13 episode we watched a few weeks before (synchronicity!).

The first book review is a first person account by another author.  The reviewed book is a fictional account of the writer’s father’s suicide; the reviewer talks about her own father’s suicide.  Rather than reviewing the book in great detail (she says it was amazing and kind of leaves it at that) she talks about the effect the book had on her life and on her writing.  It was a unique attitude in the often dull world of reviews.  There was also a review of Superfreakonomics which is just making the rounds here, and I’ll be curious to see how this review compares.

The Music article was “Who’s Afraid of the Avant Garde” and it was absolutely correct: avant garde painting is accepted (even if not everyone likes it) but avant garde music is often derided as just noise.

There’s a lot of good articles in here about painting as well.  I don’ often read gallery articles because I don’t get to go very often, but this one about an unknown (to me) painter Frank Auerbach was really interesting.

The Way We Were shows extracts from diaries that are quite amusing (and I rather hope that’s a regular feature).  While the Widescreen page looks at filmmaking in Iraq (and I, too, hope that the boy he mentions can indeed become a filmmaker when he grows up).

Finally, there’s Fiction.  I reviewed the story yesterday, and it seems like many well-respected authors get published here.  But I don’t think any of the stories are online so I can’t go back and check.

Lastly, one of my favorites: Puzzles!  There’s a rather difficult puzzle (with a contest) and then a very difficult crossword (with a contest).  I love crosswords, and I have always had a hard time with British ones. Although I greatly appreciate that they include the number of letters/words in the answer.  So far I have managed to get only three out of some 60 clues.  Phew.

And, of course, the back page.  Prospect’s back page features an Agony Aunt.  I’ve always enjoyed the phrase “agony aunt,” and find it be more dynamic than our simple “advice” sections.  This Agony Aunt seems to deal with various problems (elder parents, job stresses) with a very stern hand.  I don’t read advice columns generally (unless, you know, I see them) but I liked the way the Agony Aunt didn’t pull punches.

The special section about Copenhagen was very informative.  I’m a little weirded out that it appears to have been sponsored by Shell Oil, which seems counterintuitive (although I do appreciate that corporate “greenwashing” was discussed).  The Copenhagen Conference is an important environmental meeting that, consensus suggests, will likely not do all that much for preventing global catastrophe.  But these articles showed both positives and negatives, optimists and pessimists and, most importantly tried to be realistic about the whole thing.  So I finished the section feeling kind of glum about the future, but with a ray of hope.

So, yeah, I pretty much loved this magazine.  I feel like I may have been a little too gushy (and verbose) in this review, but this magazine spoke to me like few others do.  It reminds me of Harper’s but there’s more original work (as opposed to Harper’s excerpts from elsewhere).  And, as far as I can tell its not aggressively political (there is obviously a political slant to it, but it’s not in your face (or at least not in my face).

So, yes, if you can find Prospect here (and I haven’t actually seen what its availability is in the States), it’s a really great magazine.  In depth, but not overlong articles about issues that impact the world.  What more can you ask from a magazine?

I was in midtown the other day, walking down Lexington Avenue to meet J.C., who was finishing up an interview with a recruiter (which went very well!). We hooked up on the corner of 41st Street, deciding what we would do with the rest of the day.

Then, I lifted my eyes skyward. And, lo and behold, there was the Chrysler building!

Realizing that I was that close to one of my favorite buildings filled me with delight. Definitely a good omen. I’ve been doing that a lot lately, attributing deeper meaning to random sightings.

For instance, this morning I noticed a penny lying on the sidewalk, heads-up. Always a good sign. Several days ago, again, in Manhattan, I looked down at the sidewalk and  the Nine of Hearts was lying face-up right at my feet:

The tarot equivalent to the Nine of hearts is the Nine of Cups (above). The Nine of Cups is know as the “wish card.”

“Nine of Cups, wish come true/What you want will come to you.”

Since our afternoon was free, we thought: let’s go look at some art. The plethora of museums and galleries (and the city’s abundant rainfall) were the prime reasons I wanted to move back to New York. So we walked up to 57th St. toward the Pace Wilderstein Gallery, which is located right off Madison Ave.

The paintings of David Hockey, an artist I admire, were on exhibit.

I sneakily shot this with my camera — please excuse the slightly skewed angle…

Again, please excuse the lopsided framing of my shot (another sneak peak)…

We fell in love with the show so much that we just had to see its companion show down in the Pace Wilderstein’s Chelsea location. A couple of sneaky shots taken by J.C., who is much better at this than I am:

Notice Hockney’s more interesting treatment of the pathway in this exhibition….

Such fabulous Fauve color — can’t you just feel the “presence” of Van Gogh in this work…

…and, especially  so, in this drawing, I think.

The ground strokes in this one are so like Van Gogh’s.

Which is not to say that I am in any way accusing Hockney of appropriation. To me, it feels like a homage to Van Gogh, which is sort of wonderful.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my secondhand presentation of Hockney’s work (if you live in N.Y., then, lucky you, you can visit the exhibitions in person).

** Before signing off, I’d like to send out the very best of good vibrations (and hope you will join me in doing this) for our friend, Amanda, who was hospitalized today. **

May the Ojo de Venedo watch over you, Mandy.

]]> http://islandlass.wordpress.com/2009/11/02/david-hockney-not-just-bigger-but-better/ Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:08:05 +0000 islandlass http://islandlass.wordpress.com/2009/11/02/david-hockney-not-just-bigger-but-better/

Hockney’s vast landscape Bigger Trees Near Warter – recently donated to the Tate – is a glorious work, not least because it’s so honest about the conditions of its creation

 

Size matters … David Hockney with Bigger Trees Near Warter. Photograph: David Levene

David Hockney is no fool. He understands art history – he has, after all, written books about it. For almost half a century he has succeeded in maintaining a place in the world of art, however unfashionable or odd the directions he happened to be taking. He’s pursued his own interests, and at the same time kept his art in the public eye. And in giving his painting Bigger Trees Near Warter to the Tate he executed a masterstroke. This painting, which has just gone on view for all to see at Tate Britain, will do his reputation wonders as the century progresses. It is a triumph.

You thought Hockney was old hat? We all get it wrong. Art is beautiful because it makes fools of us. You can set up any ideology you like, define taste by any criteria you choose, and a work of art will come along to stand your prejudice on its head. If you prove by logic and erudition that art cannot come readymade, some young philosophe will display the most incredible found object that was ever put in a vitrine. This is what happened to critics 20 years ago. Nowadays, the prejudices are reversed – and so are the surprises. As the artistic ideas of the 1990s gradually sputter out, the life comes from elsewhere. From Bridlington, in this case.

Read more at The Guardian:

David Hockney: not just bigger, but better

From the moment we first welcomed guests in 1979, fine contemporary art (and photography) has been an integral part of the modern American dining experience we’ve offered at Michael’s. Here’s a small sampling of the tasty images that hang on the walls of our restaurant in Santa Monica.

“Double Standard” by Dennis Hopper.

"Boy" by Kim McCarty.

"Roman Numerals" by Cy Twombly.

"Blue" by Helen Frankenthaler.

"Singerli Variation" by Frank Stella.

"Celia" by David Hockney.

David Hockney: Pearblossom Hwy., 11 - 18th April 1986, #2

One of my life missions is to ‘help the world see the beauty in the every day’, and this image is the inspiration behind this thought (and quite possibly the inspiration that led to me becoming a photographer).

David Hockney has taken a dull, mundane desert landscape and transformed it into something full of life, colour and spirit.

A collage, made up of hundreds of individual photographs, it is depicts the crossroad of Highway 138 and a side road near Palmdale, north of LA.

When I visited the Getty Museum in LA to see it, I was devastated to find that they had only jut removed it from public viewing. Undaunted, I decided to explore the next best thing, and drove a few hundred kilometres to the actual location!

Being the sensitive soul that I am, tears formed in my eyes as I walked the middle of this road, somewhere in the middle of nowehere.

A part of me remains there today.

And so is David Hockney.

Drawn with his thumb on an iPhone, every one of these elicits a gasp of delight.

David Hockney with Bigger Trees Near Warter. Photograph: David Levene

David Hockney is no fool. He understands art history – he has, after all, written books about it. For almost half a century he has succeeded in maintaining a place in the world of art, however unfashionable or odd the directions he happened to be taking. He’s pursued his own interests, and at the same time kept his art in the public eye. And in giving his painting Bigger Trees Near Warter to the Tate he executed a masterstroke. This painting, which has just gone on view for all to see at Tate Britain, will do his reputation wonders as the century progresses. It is a triumph.

You thought Hockney was old hat? We all get it wrong. Art is beautiful because it makes fools of us. You can set up any ideology you like, define taste by any criteria you choose, and a work of art will come along to stand your prejudice on its head. If you prove by logic and erudition that art cannot come readymade, some young philosophe will display the most incredible found object that was ever put in a vitrine. This is what happened to critics 20 years ago. Nowadays, the prejudices are reversed – and so are the surprises. As the artistic ideas of the 1990s gradually sputter out, the life comes from elsewhere. From Bridlington, in this case.

More

Jonathan Jones
Guardian