A Big Splash in Nottingham

Nottingham Visual Arts is excited to forecast the burst of Californian sunshine set to point its rays to the city this autumn in the form of a major David Hockney exhibition, which will herald the opening of Nottingham Contemporary on 14th November. 

The exhibition will re-examine Hockney's work 1960-1968, his early years in London and Los Angeles, in the context of art today. The show will feature the breathtaking Californian painting 'A Bigger Splash', 1967. It is the first time the early work has been brought together since the Whitechapel retrospective of 1970, nearly 40 years ago. The exhibition will run until 24th January 2010.

Sourced from important national and international museum collections, over 60 works by this iconic artist will adorn the walls of the new art space, designed by leading architects Caruso St John. The exhibition will occupy two of Nottingham Contemporary's four galleries, a huge combined space of 750 square metres, lit by 133 skylights. "Quite simply it will be one of the best spaces for art and culture anywhere in Britain,” Tate Director Nicholas Serota was recently quoted as saying.

The bespoke building for contemporary art has been funded by The National Lottery through Arts Council England, Nottingham City Council, East  Midlands Development Agency  and part financed through The European Union and European Regional Development  Fund. It's pricetag, at £19.4million, is more than half the cost of the comparative BALTIC Centre for contemporary art in Gateshead, which cost over £46million to construct.

The exhibition is curated by Nottingham Contemporary Director, Alex Farquharson. He is known for his adventurous and popular approach. He co-curated British Art Show 6 which attracted 350,000 visitors to four cities and 'If Everybody Had An Ocean', an exhibition inspired by Beach Boys' Brian Wilson, one of the most popular exhibitions ever at Tate St Ives.
 
About the Hockney show, Alex Farquharson commented: "Hockney, in this period, was at the crest of a wave, not only in the artistic avantgarde, but in culture in general. It is a fascinating trajectory, from his first idiosyncratic takes on abstraction in 1960 to his unforgettable representations of southern California several years on. Allusions to this work abound in art today – in the work of Elizabeth Peyton, Jack Pierson and Frances Stark, to cite just three important examples. It feels absolutely the right time to be revisiting this work now.”

Also on show for the opening of Nottingham Contemporary will be an exhibition of new and recent work by Frances Stark, one of the most fascinating artists to have emerged from Los Angeles’s vibrant art scene in the past 15 years. This is her first solo exhibition in a British public gallery and it will travel to CCA Glasgow.

Laura Dyer, Executive Director, East Midlands, Arts Council England, said: “I have no doubt that this opening exhibition at Nottingham Contemporary will inspire. Hockney is such an iconic artist that it seems appropriate that an exhibition of his work opens this wonderful iconic new building.”

* Photo credits for David Hockney paintings, from top to bottom:1. David Hockney "A Bigger Splash" 1967. Acrylic on Canvas, 96 x 96" © David Hockney Photo Credit: Richard Schmidt; 2. David Hockney "Flight into Italy - Swiss Landscape" 1962 Oil on Canvas 72 x 72" © David Hockney; 3. David Hockney  "I'm In the Mood for Love" 1961 Oil on Board 50 x 40" © David Hockney. Photo Credit: Paul Oszvald;  4. David Hockney "Peter Getting Out of Nick's Pool" 1966 Acrylic on Canvas 84 x 84" © David Hockney