Double David Hockney exhibition coming to Bozar in autumn

A double exhibition of work by one of the world’s most influential living artists is coming to Bozar in October. It is the first time a major exhibition of work by David Hockney will be staged in Belgium in nearly 30 years.

Featuring some of the finest works from the Tate in London, the exhibition David Hockney: Works from the Tate Collection, 1954-2017 takes the visitor on a journey through the long career of the 83-year-old British artist.

The second exhibition, David Hockney: The Arrival of Spring, Normandy, 2020, is a collection of the artist’s most recent work (pictured above). Under the tagline ‘Do remember they can’t cancel the spring,’ Hockney created the series in the midst of the coronavirus crisis. Not for the first time, the artist drew the series using his iPad. The images were then printed in large-scale sizes.

Hockney is a rare artist who is as well-loved in popular culture as by art aficionados and critics. One of the instigators of London’s pop art movement of the 1960s, he went on to spend six decades searching for new ways to depict the world.

David Hockney’s ‘Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy’, 1970-1971, Collection Tate, UK

The artist’s ‘swimming pool’ series, painted in Los Angeles, was so successful in capturing 1970s California lifestyle, it shot him into international stardom. In 2018, one painting in the series broke the record for the most money paid at auction for a work by a living artist. With a selling price of $90 million, it smashed the previous record of $58 million.

While Hockney’s most iconic works are figurative, he has often turned to landscapes, such as in The Arrival of Spring, a joyful series bursting with colour. “As his main sources of inspiration are his own experiences and relationships,” says Bozar in a statement, “his powerful images appeal to people all over the world.”

The two exhibitions will open at Bozar on 8 October and will run until late in January 2022.

Photo top: David Hockney in his Normandy studio, surrounded by several of his new works, photo by Jonathan Wilkinson