An ambitious digital retrospective dedicated to David Hockney offers audiences an undeniably monumental sensory encounter, yet the glossy spectacle risks flattening the celebrated British artist's intricate conceptual legacy into mere entertainment.
The exhibition, titled Bigger and Closer (not smaller and further away), envelops visitors in vast, multi-surface projections tracing more than six decades of Hockney’s tireless visual experimentation. From sun-drenched Los Angeles swimming pools and Yorkshire country lanes to recent iPad landscapes and operatic stage designs, the production delivers an overwhelming feast of vibrant saturated colour.
Projecting an icon on an industrial scale
Unlike traditional gallery presentations that demand quiet contemplation before original canvases, this vast digital staging relies on high-definition projection mapping, bespoke animation, and immersive soundscapes. Narrated by the 86-year-old artist himself, the presentation invites patrons to enter directly into Hockney’s perspective as he dissects how he perceives and depicts the world.
The production reflects Hockney's lifelong obsession with optical technologies, from early experiments with photocopiers and Polaroid film to his enthusiastic embrace of digital drawing tablets. On a sheer sensory level, the scale is undeniably triumphant, converting public venues into luminescent spaces where brushstrokes loom several storeys high.
The tension between spectacle and scrutiny
However, the celebration comes at a distinct interpretive cost. The Conversation AU reported that while the show is an unreserved triumph of scale and accessible showmanship, it lacks the critical depth and psychological complexity necessary to fully understand Hockney’s artistic significance.
By packaging his career into an unbroken narrative of cheerful innovation, the experience glosses over the friction, melancholy, and vulnerability that underpin his most vital works. The poignant quietude of his renowned double portraits and the grief surrounding the HIV/AIDS epidemic that devastated his social circle in California receive limited contemplation amid the relentless visual momentum. Instead, audiences are treated to a curated celebration that privileges brand recognition over rigorous critique.
Flattening the tactile mastery of canvas
There is also an aesthetic contradiction at the heart of the digital format. Hockney has spent his life interrogating the mechanics of human vision, famously challenging the distorting single-point perspective of the camera in favour of fragmented, Cubist-inspired multiplicity.
Yet, as observers note, projecting digital reproductions onto giant flat walls paradoxically flattens the tactile immediacy of the work. The thick impasto, delicate graphite marks, and visceral presence of paint are subordinated to uniform luminosity. Viewers do not move freely around physical objects to discover unexpected angles; rather, they remain largely stationary as dynamic imagery washes over them.
The commercial rise of the immersive exhibition
The production exemplifies a broader, lucrative shift within the global arts landscape. Across Australia and internationally, venues have increasingly embraced high-tech digital environments—previously dedicated to Vincent van Gogh, Claude Monet, and Frida Kahlo—as commercially potent alternatives to costly, insurance-heavy museum retrospectives.
While these digital spectacles democratise access and attract substantial crowds, they fundamentally alter the viewer's relationship with art history. Hockney’s Bigger and Closer certainly delivers on its promise of sheer size, but whether it truly brings audiences any closer to the soul of his practice remains an open question.
