Hockney at the Media Museum

The main exhibition I wanted to see in Bradford was at the Science and Media Museum. It's an interesting building with five or six levels and a sweeping and dramatic glass foyer at the front. It was closed all last year for a revamp... but I couldn't really see a lot of difference from how it used to be! Thankfully it has now reopened, to coincide with the City of Culture.  

There's a large sculpture of Wallace and Gromit's arch enemy Feathers McGraw hanging in the entrance. (See also HERE). Given the success of the latest film from Aardman Animations, 'Vengeance Most Fowl', I think that will be enjoyed by some of the younger visitors. 

One of the galleries has a new exhibition of David Hockney's work, 'Pieced Together', which draws parallels between his current nine-camera-video installations (which I mentioned before, HERE) and his much earlier, photographic 'joiner' collages made in the 1980s. (An example is below, an image of Hockney's mother, in the rain, seated on a tombstone at Bolton Abbey.) The artworks are accompanied by various videos and interviews with Hockney, exploring concepts of time, space and perspective in art and photos and how we 'see' them. I found it very interesting, though I was rather disappointed that there were very few actual works on show - just a couple of 'joiners' and a more recent video installation of 'The Four Seasons, Woldgate Woods'.

By the way, if you look back to my first photo, you will see I was intrigued by the effect of the angled glass, which in itself created almost a 'joiner' photo of the surrounding buildings. 

On leaving the museum, it was evident there'd just been a sharp rain shower, so the statue of novelist and playwright J B Priestley was gazing at a beautiful rainbow.  

'I mean, photography is alright if you don't mind looking at the world 

from the point of view of a paralysed Cyclops - for a split second. 

But that's not what it's like to live in the world.'

David Hockney