The National Science and Media Museum has reopened with an exhibition by Bradford-born artist David Hockney
National Science and Media Museum Reopens with a Landmark Exhibition
As the National Science and Media Museum enters a new era, its inaugural temporary exhibition David Hockney: Pieced Together showcases the world-renowned, Bradford-born artist’s pioneering use of photography and film.
The exhibition showcases Hockney’s video installation capturing Woldgate Woods in the East Riding of Yorkshire through the four seasons, with multiple screens showing a different perspective of the country lane. Alongside this immersive work, the exhibition explores the artistic and technical parallels of Hockney’s early ‘joiner’ photocollages, two of which are part of the museum’s collection. One of the joiners on display shows the museum in its early days as the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television in 1985, and has not been on display in 25 years.
Exploring Hockney’s Innovative Use of Photography and Film
Known for his paintings, Hockney has also embraced using technology to create his art. Making visual ‘collages’ with still and video cameras, he captures the way we see scenes in real life. These works push the boundaries of how film and photographic technologies can record images with a true-to-life sense of time, scale and perspective.
Hockney’s scepticism about photography’s capacity to deliver a true representation of perspective led him to push the boundaries of the medium, combining multiple viewpoints in a single work of art. Talking about this experimentation in the 1970s and 80s, Hockney commented: “The joiners were much closer to the way we actually look at things, closer to the truth of the experience.”
The Influence of Technology on Hockney’s Artistic Evolution
In recent decades, Hockney has embraced technology further, using video and more recently iPad to create artworks at scale, giving the viewer an immersive experience. The Four Seasons, Woldgate Woods (Spring 2011, Summer 2010, Autumn 2010, Winter 2010) mirrors the approach of the joiners, in that each film (Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter) is a composite of nine separate videos. Each film was originally just under an hour long, which Hockney edited down to four minutes. The presentation of the whole work across four walls surrounding the visitor creates a real sense of place.
The exhibition continues until 18th May and visitors can enjoy related screenings in Pictureville Cinema. The opening weekend in January was marked with a screening of Hockney (2014), with an introduction from Kate Burnett, the exhibition’s Interpretation Developer, and A Bigger Splash (1973). The documentary weaves together contributions from Hockney and those close to him as well as exclusive footage from his personal archive, reflecting on Hockney’s formative years in the British art scene and his experience during the AIDs crisis. Pictureville will also host a specially curated Artists on Film strand to close the exhibition in May.
David Hockney has been at the forefront of the international art world for more than six decades. He emerged as one of the exceptional talents in the new generation of British artists in the early 1960s. Throughout his extraordinarily prolific career, he remains endlessly inventive and committed to celebrating the world around him. In the darkest days of the Covid lockdown, he delighted the world with his iPad paintings of spring and renewal, an antidote to the uncertainty brought about by the pandemic.
Hockney is fascinated by the language of representation in a variety of forms. He explores the conventions of Chinese and Japanese painting as well as the traditions of European art. He experimented with abstraction; however, he steadfastly remains a figurative artist. Constantly questioning the world around him, he draws and paints from life, from memory, and from imagination.
A Legacy of Innovation: Hockney’s Impact on the Art World
Across his career he has created many bodies of works and numerous individual paintings which are now viewed as iconic. His experimental paintings in the early sixties announced the arrival of a new artistic voice. These were followed by a celebrated series of Hollywood swimming pools where the young Hockney arrived in 1964, documenting the city’s seductive charm and ambience from the position of an outsider. Often poetically titled, works such as A Bigger Splash and Beverly Hills Housewife have become celebrated paintings and part of the modern vernacular.
A deep fascination with perspective and a desire to investigate how we see and represent the world initiated a long and complicated relationship with the camera and lens. Hockney’s photographic collages in the 1980s, with their cubist language and reliance on the fundamental concepts of drawing, challenged the limitations of the lens. Never afraid to push against the accepted doctrines of art history, his focus on past masters’ reliance on the lens as a painting device resulted in an in-depth study of the subject in both a book and BBC documentary, Secret Knowledge, published in 2001.
From painting, drawing, printmaking, set design, and photography to media ranging from fax machines to iPads, Hockney demonstrates his deep understanding of art history coupled with his interest in modern technology to create new ways of seeing and presenting. Hockney’s rich and enduring body of work reveals his passion for contemporary life and curiosity about the world, epitomized by his signature phrase, “Love Life”.
Commenting on the exhibition Jo Quinton-Tulloch, Director of the National Science and Media Museum, says: “Reopening the museum with this remarkable exhibition feels incredibly fitting. David Hockney has continually pushed the boundaries of art, including in his pioneering approach to photography and film. David Hockney: Pieced Together provides a unique opportunity to experience this lesser-seen side to his work, including two of his iconic joiners from the museum’s collection – on display for the first time in 25 years. One of these joiners, created by Hockney of the museum when it first opened, weaves a lovely connection between his art and the museum itself. Showcasing Hockney’s groundbreaking work through his Bradford roots makes it the perfect exhibition to begin 2025 with, marking an exciting chapter in our history.”
The National Science and Media Museum in Bradford, West Yorkshire, opened in 1983, and has since become one of the most visited UK museums outside London. It draws on more than three million objects from its national collection to explore the science and culture of image and sound technologies, and their impact on our lives.
The museum creates special exhibitions, interactive galleries and activities for families and adults, and is home to Pictureville, Yorkshire’s biggest independent cinema with three screens including Europe’s first IMAX and the only public Cinerama venue in the world. The National Science and Media Museum reopened on 8th January, following a £6m once in a generation transformation.
For more information about David Hockney: Pieced Together, visit scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk
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