David Hockney and the Flu Jab

I needed to go to Belfast to get the annual flu jab. I wasn’t looking forward to it. ‘You should add in a treat’, suggested T. After some pondering, I decided on the Hockney exhibition at the MAC. It had been recommended by a friend of mine. In the end, I was very glad that I went.

One of the advantages of being a cancer patient, indeed, it may be the only one, is that you are given the annual flu jab free of charge. Despite feeling under the weather, T drove me to Belfast for the jab. And a jab it certainly is; the vaccine is delivered by a broadish needle that the doctor forcefully inserts into the deltoid muscle of your upper arm. Thankfully, it was all over quickly and I was soon on my way to the MAC.

The exhibition space was on the third floor. It was free, but you still needed a ticket. So like many others, I went up to level three, down to the box-office in the foyer and back up again in the lift. The exhibition was billed as the first major show of Hockney’s work on the island of Ireland, surprising given his worldwide recognition. I thought back to the last time I had seen an exhibition of his work. It would have been twenty years before in Salt’s Mill in Bradford, Hockney’s home town. Salt’s Mill had been built by the Victorian social entrepreneur Titus Salt at the centre of his industrial village of Saltaire (like the Richardsons and Bessbrook). At that time I was living in a village in the Yorkshire Wolds, an area that Hockney had recently begun to paint in landscape.

Drawings and canvasses from throughout Hockney’s long career as an artist were crammed into a space that was subdivided into several smallish rooms. My initial thought was that the exhibition would all have been so much better shown in the Ormeau Baths Gallery, but, hey-ho, that was closed down in a political row over the opening of the MAC. But then I began to concentrate on the work.

Hockney is a very skilled draughtsman and drawing has been at the centre of his art since he studied in Bradford during the 1950’s. There were some early streetscapes from Bradford, then a roomful of portraits. Hockney is particularly good at capturing facial expression and bodily aspect. The portrait I liked best was of two men in bathrobes on easy chairs; the older man was looking at the viewer and the younger man was looking at the older.

The next room was dominated by two large pieces. The first was one of his large Californian pool paintings: sunlight, dappled water, a splash, a wobbly pink torso. On closer inspection it was made of coloured papier-mâché, which powerfully augmented the dappled effect. The second, was a series of 16 lithographs called The Rake’s Progress. These were inspired by Hockney’s first trip to the USA and were a reflection on Hogarth’s originals. Although witty and well made, they seemed a little dated in their critique: Bedlam was a row of identikit young men in jeans and T shirts with Sony Walkmans in their back pockets.

The final room was an assemblage of pieces from across his career. There were several of his recent Yorkshire Wolds' landscapes, drawn on Ipad and colour printed. The outcome was more like painting than drawing. I liked a large treescape the best. On the other walls were two very interesting series of lithographs inspired by Surrealism and Expressionism. The first series provided some witty pastiches of Picasso. The second series, called ‘The Boy who Left Home to find Fear,’ was largely expressionist in style. The series was inspired by Grimms’ Fairy Tales. I looked at the dozen or so plates again and again. This series, drawn 1969-70, was, I felt, the best piece in the exhibition.

In the car on the way home, I began to feel groggy. My body started to ache and my throat became sore. The side effects of the flu jab were kicking in. I went to bed and slept for thirteen hours. The next day I was little better, but I still felt groggy, weak and feverish.

The Hockney exhibition is on at the MAC until 16 October. It is well worth a trip. The flu jab is unpleasant in the short term, but hopefully worth it in the long run.