Monkdogz Artblog

Pace Wildenstein has produced another blockbuster show, this time a David Hockney exhibition spread across their 25th Street and 57th Street locations. The work is his most recent from 2006 onwards and has been inspired by his return to Yorkshire.

It is also a return to oil paintings which he has always favored but after having explored everything from water color painting, drawing, set design, photography, photo collage, printmaking, fax machines, laser photocopiers, digital renderings and even the use of Brushes the iPhone application.

The colors are pure Hockney as is the perspective which he describes as “seeing the space.” The landscape of East Yorkshire is low rolling chalk hills with deep valleys with steep sides which cut through the hills. There are few woods in this rural mainly agricultural area. Hockney explains that “it’s not just about landscape. It’s about being in it, seeing it, it’s about England. I’m painting the real England.”

He suggests that you “stand in the landscape you love, try and depict your feelings of space, and forget photographic vision, which is distancing us too much from the physical world.”

Hockney draws in charcoal to start on the canvas which he brings out doors, en plein air, working with smaller canvases which he combines to create a large-scale multi-canvas painting. He takes the canvases back in the studio to finish them, rarely returning to the site. He is a prolific painter and can create several canvases in one day.

The paintings range from $800,000 to $7million and two thirds have been sold according to the gallery with reserves on the remainder. This suggests that there might be some positive movement in the art market.

The show at Pace Wildenststein Gallery is on view until December 24th, 2009.

It was almost like the old days…..25th street was thronged with people. Openings at Pace Wildenstein and Marlborough, drew people down the street and a very cosmopolitan mix of chattered as they came in and out.

Richard Tuttle’s new show “Walking on Air” was simple and beautiful as expected. It achieved the “expression of elation for the potential for a new beginning, the possibility to rebuild and discover a harmony for existing in the world today” that he was looking for.

Half way through the evening, 8 of the 12 pieces had either been sold or reserved a good sign in these times. The price point of $150,000 was obviously well pegged and I watched a young collector coming out of the back room, obviously very pleased with his purchase.

I would have liked to have chatted to Tuttle, but he was there one minute and gone the next, dragged away with excited potential buyers. After all these years, I wonder if there is still an excitement to attending one of your own solo show openings.

The Pace gallerinas were as usual friendly and informative. They all seemed cautiously optimistic, although I had a feeling that some of it was a little bit of posturing, but I would not have expected any less. At least people are back looking around. It has to be the first step to getting people to buy artwork again. I felt a collective sigh of relief and I don’t think it was just the warmth of the evening.