By Ashleigh Stevenson
Exhibition on Screen is one of the latest and most popular alt-content options for cinemagoers. Their Leonardo live film was a massive success, and it has inspired numerous others under the same banner. And now comes David Hockney at The Royal Academy of Arts, the initiative’s first film on a living artist.
The film focuses on two specific Hockney exhibitions: A Bigger Picture in 2012, which featured landscapes and 82 portraits and One Still Life in 2016, which consisted of portraits of people that Hockney had painted 3 days at a time and one still life portrait of fruit on a table. Intercut with footage of the exhibitions are 3 interviews with Hockney himself.
Phil Grabsky wanted to showcase Hockney’s “continued energy and creativity” and felt that was best highlighted through these two shows at The Royal Academy of Arts. “Thus, the film was in the moment and could really explore yet another great artist who just seems to get better with age. Little did we know how popular the shows would be – 750,000 people,” Grabsky explained.
When pitching the idea to Hockney, Grabsky showed the artist a past Exhibition on Screen film on Rembrandt, who is Hockney’s favourite artist. “All artists have a core of self-protecting steel but we treated David with respect, we did our research, we focused on the art and he responded with great charm and good humour. I must add that our long relationship with the Royal Academy and indeed the wonderful Tim Marlow [Artistic Director of the Royal Academy of Arts, and who interviews Hockney in the film] was also important – and they fully backed us from the start and Hockney trusts them both,” Grabsky said.
Grabsky also explained that the Exhibition on Screen series “always seeks to fulfil multiple objectives – to bring great art to the screen in a way never before technically possible, for one thing. I also want to explore who an artist is, why they do what they do, the importance of historical and social contexts, and so on. I think one key desire with the Hockney film was to show how his passion for art is undimmed with age – and how now one of the stamps of a great artist is that slight disquiet with everything they do, the feeling that they can still learn, improve, experiment. And yet whichever direction they take you still know it’s a work by Hockney.”
Exhibition on Screen is an ongoing series, with three films in production, and Grabsky is proud to tell us that the one he’s directing about ‘Young Picasso’ “is going to be a stunner!”
Exhibition on Screen: David Hockney at The Royal Academy of Arts is in cinemas now. Canaletto & the Art of Venice is released August 2, 2018. Cézanne – Portraits of a Life is in cinemas October 4, 2018. I, Claude Monet is in cinemas December 6, 2018. Vincent van Gogh: A New Way of Seeing is in cinemas February 2019. Head to www.exhibitiononscreen.com to find out where it’s playing near you.
