Posted by SWFH Editor in • 16toads Design • Opinion • Arts
Posted on 05/12/09 at 12:15 PM • (0) Comments • Join the Forum Discussion

David Hockney has been a famous artist longer than I've been alive. Best known for his contributions to the Pop art movement of the 1960's, a rapacious homosexual urge, and his friendship with Andy Warhol this British artist is considered, by some, to be among the most influential artists of the 20th century. Love him or hate him, he simply won't go away.

Hockney doesn't come from wealth or privilege, but has, by all accounts, had a fairly easy and surprisingly long career.  He managed to attain super-stardom with little effort, having always been in the right place, at the right time, around the right people, all of the time.  Despite his well-documented lifestyle obsessions and the trials and tribulations that accompany such compulsive behavior, he has also managed to maintain his sanity.

He has dabbled as a painter, draughtsman, printmaker, stage designer and photocollage-er. His famous painting, We Two Boys Together Clinging (1961) is an image of two gay bowel movements hugging one another.  I've never been fond of much of his work, but I do appreciate his architectural and natural (nature) realist paintings such as A Bigger Splash (1967) and A Bigger Grand Canyon, (1998). On the other hand, his "realistic" portraits are technically and compositionally lousy and his photocollages are, well, photocollages. [yawn]

You will find very few artists, art critics and historians, collectors, or students who will agree with my assessment of his work. In fact, quite the opposite. He is considered an "icon" in the art world, having reached a level of achievement that entitles him to a complete absence of criticism. As a result, Hockney's work sells for millions of dollars to art "collectors" who are almost certainly more interested in owning a "name" they can drop at their dinner parties than they are learning the difference between pasta and impasto.

Which brings me to the point of this article.

Very few artists ever reach the level of respect or popularity or, more aptly, marketability that allows them absolute creative freedom to produce anything they feel like producing and have the end result instantly labeled a "masterpiece". There are a few so-called "masters" who have been producing artistic garbage for decades and selling their crap to name-dropping, uber-wealthy collectors for millions of dollars simply because their name allows them to get away with it.

Their work wasn't impressive then, why now? Simple, profit.

Hockney has, to his great credit, always embraced new technologies and methods of working. He recently purchased an iPhone and installed an iApp (one of many versions) that allows a user to draw pictures directly onscreen using a stylus. 

He drew a flower arrangement. Yippee. For once, it is perfectly reasonable to state, "my kid could do that" and be absolutely correct.

His stupid-simple digital flower sketch has been called a "masterpiece" and I have no doubt that an enterprising used-car salesman who calls himself an "art dealer" will start selling signed laser print-outs (on watercolor paper) of iHockneys to ignorant art collectors for hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars ... Proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that the art world is bankrupt and the resale price is all that matters.

And, be sure to watch out for the inevitable installation of hundreds of iPhones creating a digital collage of a single image or, better yet, a multi-iPhone collage that rotates mulitple images ... Oh heavens!  The possibilities for schlock are endless.

iHackney.

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