12 maart 2014

David Hockney #7

David Hockney naked in front of a blank canvas at his London studio, 1976. (foto: R.B. Kitaj)


R.B. Kitaj: The Neo-Cubist, 1976–87.

"In 1976 Kitaj painted Hockney from a picture he had taken of him standing naked in front of a canvas at his studio in London. The first version was called David (unfinished) (1976–77).

I didn’t care much for it and it lay in storage for many years. In the late 80s, David described to me the death of his friend Isherwood in California. I took up the old portrait again and drew a kind of alter-figure across the original one, with Chris Isherwood in mind. Like Hockney – and unlike me – he had been a very optimistic individual, with a sublime personality. So I made the both of them into Cubist doppelgängers of each other, representing both life and death in a particular, perspectival California setting." (bron: 032c)

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