Saturday 21st November 2009
I never treat myself to anything exciting, so I decided that I would take myself to see an exhibition of the great Hockney’s work.
I managed to stumble upon an article online detailing the new exhibition about a week before it opened on the 14th and turned into a little kid on Christmas when I found out it was possible to go. David Hockney is a big inspiration for me in general, but what made the exhibition even better was the fact that the work that was to be shown is his 1960’s work: the work of his I love the most. And it was free.
A week past and the exhibition opened. I still really wanted to go, but I had the problem of finding someone to come with me and I had to figure out how to get to Nottingham. After asking loads of people if they wanted to come and them declining the offer due to lack of money or fear of going to Nottingham, I decided I’d just go all by myself. Train tickets were cheap(ish) and I didn’t care if I got mugged in Nottingham as long as I got to see Hockney’s work.
The 21st was the best day to go as it was a Saturday so I got my tickets and left for my 3 hours 45 minutes train journey. Nothing exciting really happened on the journey so I’ll skip straight to getting into Nottingham and getting lost. I whipped my map out as soon as I got to the city and figured that the centre where the exhibition was wasn’t far at all from the station. But that didn’t stop me going the long way round; through shopping centres and into the crowds of Christmas shoppers alone. It was pretty frightening to be alone in some city that has a bad name and that I’d never been to before. But I couldn’t go back to Hereford without seeing some of my favourite artwork. After 20 minutes of wandering I found the Nottingham Contemporary Centre; a sweet little gallery right by a tram line where I saw numerous people almost get knocked down by trams. Once in the gallery the first room I entered was the shop; mainly a large collection of books and a few other bits. After a quick look in the shop there were a number of doors to different galleries; I decided to follow the signs that were put up just so the pictures were in numerical order and I wanted to do it properly. The first gallery I entered featured, to my dismay, some other artist’s work. The work in the room was that of Frances Stark. I took a look anyway as the work I saw was intriguing and just by looking I found a new artist that I liked.
Once I’d had my fill of Stark’s work I went straight into another gallery space and found a smile tugging at my mouth as my eyes wandered around the room and saw a number of canvas pieces that I never thought I’d see in real life. I took each Painting one at a time; reading every caption and the information provided. Once I’d marvelled at the likes of ‘Doll Boy’ and the Homosexual Propaganda I moved onto the next gallery space where again, I took each Painting and print work one at a time and read everything. This room featured the ‘America’ work such as all his paintings of men in swimming pools and showers, his studies of men and his recreation of ‘A Rake’s Progress’.
After spending roughly 2 hours in the gallery I decided I should probably leave before I concocted a plan to steal some of the paintings; but not before I brought the exhibition book, which I have to say, is a beautifully made book with too many big words in it for me. I slowly made my way back towards the train station; I did think about shopping but decided against it as it was raining and it was Nottingham after all... I spent my long journey back to Hereford thinking over the exhibition and how happy I was to have been lucky enough to have seen the beautiful work Hockney produced at the Royal College and on his travels. Not even the stupidly packed train from Birmingham where I had to stand for about an hour could damped my spirits after seeing a Hockney’s work for probably my first, and last time.
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