I entered the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET), in New York, for the second time in my life, this time determined to at least be able to lay eyes on the entire collection (which is different from appreciating it, mind you). Like the Louvre in Paris, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, or the British Museum in London, it is one of those super museums whose large and impressive collection needs to be explored on days of curious exploration. It’s almost a battle, I even feel palpitations.
In the huge entrance hall, a poster announced the temporary exhibition celebrating the 80th birthday of David Hockney, the British artist who is one of my favorites in life. “Screw it,” I thought, anticipating that I would be immersed in his work long enough to WO the self-imposed challenge. He was right: the exhibition that runs until February 25, 2018 at the MET promotes a beautiful reading of his work, from different phases, including some of his most famous paintings.
David Hockney, 80 years old, at an exhibition in Australia. Photo: Allan Henderson (CC BY 2.0)
Even though I knew that Hockney was gay, I had no idea how big an influence this personality trait had on his work – which the exhibition reveals through the texts that accompany the paintings. His production is deeply influenced by the prohibition of homosexuality in the United Kingdom, removed only in 1967. The works show the artist’s first clandestine loves, his domestic relationship with his beloved, Peter Schlesinger, and gay friends.
Foto:Victoria Pickering (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
In “My Brother is Only Sventeen”, from 1962, David shows in the center of the painting the ambiguous meeting of two somewhat ghostly men, and adds literary references and secret codes for what he would call “propaganda of gay desire”. At a time when homoerotic sexual acts were a crime, he painted “Cleaning Teeth, Early Evening”, also in 1962, with two figures in an oral sex position, replacing their genitals with tubes of toothpaste. In “Domestic Scene”, from 1963, the British artist naturally presents a man rubbing the back of another, naked man, while taking a shower.
Of the relationship with Schlesinger, who was his greatest passion and his student at UCLA (University of California), two pictures are most striking. “The Room, Tarzana”, from 1967, shows Peter lying face down on a bed, wearing only a white T-shirt and socks. The sun invades the room, and the homely scene gains artistic strength precisely because of its simplicity. “Pool and Steps, Le Nid du Duc”, from 1971, shows the corner of a swimming pool and some steps, which belonged to the summer house of a friend of Hockney in Saint-Tropez, on the French Riviera. The pair of flip-flops by the pool, abandoned by Peter, almost goes unnoticed, as a metaphor for the couple at that moment (they would separate on their return to London).
The painting “Pool and Steps, Le Nid du Duc”, in the MET exhibition.
Foto: Victoria Pickering (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
For the painter, his model of a successful relationship was the marriage of his friend, writer Christopher Isherwood, to artist Don Bachardy, thirty years his junior. That’s why he painted them sitting on a sofa in 1968 in an exchange of looks that made this one of his most famous paintings.
The exhibition also explores the most recent collages, abstractions and delicious studies of a mature Hockney. I learned that it is impossible to dissociate his work from the prohibition of homosexuality in his homeland, and I realized that any LGBTQI+ person will immediately identify with the initial anguish represented in the works. As for MET, next time I’ll kick his ass (I think).
To get to know the works of David Hockney up close
Exhibition 82 Portraits. Photo: Allan Henderson (CC BY 2.0)
David Hockney’s official website lists all the exhibitions featuring the artist’s work:
“DAVID HOCKNEY”, no Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, until February 25, 2018;
“DAVID HOCKNEY RA: 82 PORTRAITS AND 1 STILL LIFE”, no Guggenheim Museum, in Bilbao, until February 25, 2018
“DAVID HOCKNEY: THE ARRIVAL OF SPRING”, em Salts Mill, Saltaire, West Yorkshire, UK, until 6 May 2020 (this exhibition is close to where David lives)
The website also indicates which museums around the world will be receiving Hockney’s works next.
