David Hockney, Modernism, and the Triumph of Ugliness
Save us From the Fires of Hell
David Hockney died yesterday. This was met with the compulsory outpouring of grief from all the usual sources, led by King Charles III who described him as a ‘Giant of the art world’. A man, Charles tells us, who was ‘One of life’s true originals’. In truth however, his art was crap and he was far from original.
When I was about 7 years old I remember being in my uncle Brians house in Fulham. He worked with Nick Serota to establish the Tate Modern, and had, in his hallway, a picture of a bloke in a pool. I remember how ugly I thought it was and how weird it seemed that my uncle had it hanging there. I asked him who was in the painting. ‘It’s a Hockney’ he said. I didn’t know what he meant. 10 years later I would have said ‘It looks gay’. And it was.
Hockney has been described as a towering pioneer of queer art, who lived openly as a ‘gay man’ long before homosexuality was decriminialised. Hockney openly described his early, intimate depictions of gay love and desire as a necessary form of ‘propaganda’ for a subject that had been largely ignored.
Well Hockney must have died a happy man, having witnessed the fruit of his efforts. It’s remarkable how quickly we have moved from a country that had some sense of decency and restraint, to one that legitimises and celebrates sterile sex and ‘orgasm addicts’.
In a recent conversation we had with Frank Wright, he said;
