Viewing David Hockney: Bigger & Closer (not smaller & further away)

David Hockney: Bigger & Closer (not smaller & further away). Hockney is back and more innovative than ever, with an extraordinary four storey high space in Kings Cross – adjacent to Coal Drops Yard and Central St Martin’s. Combining his iconic paintings with unique digital projections and audio technology, London Theatre Company and 59 Productions have developed a new creative venture in the heart of King’s Cross “Lightroom”.

In a cycle of six themed chapters, with a specially composed score by Nico Muhly and a commentary by the artist himself, Hockney reveals his process to us. His voice is in our ears as we watch him experimenting with perspective, using photography as a way of ‘drawing with a camera’, capturing the passing of time in his polaroid collages and the joy of spring on his iPad, and showing us why only paint can properly convey the hugeness of the Grand Canyon. We join him on his audio-visual Wagner Drive, roaring up into the San Gabriel Mountains, and into the opera house by means of animated re-creations of his stage designs.

“The world is very very beautiful if you look at it, but most people don’t look very much. They scan the ground in front of them so they can walk, they don’t really look at things incredibly well, with an intensity. I do.” David Hockney, from the soundtrack of ‘Bigger & Closer (not smaller & further away)’