The exhibition “David Hockney : Bigger and Closer (not smaller and further away)” is open at the new audiovisual venue, Lightroom Seoul equipped with the latest digital projection and audio technology from November 1, 2023 until May 31, 2024.

The interactive spectacle exhibition opened at Lightroom Seoul after debuting in Lightroom London from February 22, 2023 until December 4, 2023.

David Hockney,born in 1937 is an English painter, stage designer, printmaker, photographer, making significant contributions to the pop art movement of the 1960s. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential British artists of the 20th century.

David Hockney’s art spanning the past sixty years has been featured in paintings, photographs, and audio visuals and is filled with entire walls including floor using large-scale projections to create immersive media art with high quality.

A new 360-degree large scale film installation provides an intimate insight into the famed artist’s life and career, offering various perspectives.

The 50-minute loop of vivid color and the voice of Hockney is projected across all four walls and the grey floor of the exhibition space.

In many ways, this represents the artist’s new technological venture into immersive media art, with Hocken himself participating in the exhibition planning and creating works that could show his world of works best with the production team for three years.

In other words, the Bigger & Closer exhibition is not a posthumous display of long-deceased artists’ licensed tours, but rather a collaborative effort with a living creator.

Art has the power to enhance our emotional state, offering relief in addition to delighting, stimulating, informing and, above all, bringing joy.

To effectively deliver this joyful art experience using five senses of the audiences, the old master David Hockney added orchestral music along with the artist’s own reflective narration, various lighting, and animation into his works.

David Hockney, an 86-year-old master, has embraced new painting tools like the iPad and polaroid camera in his works.

Hockney reveals his process of drawing with iPad as a content.

Audiences are free to walk around the venue while experiencing his recognizable brush and digital works stretched out across the four walls and floor.

Audiences get the feeling of watching the artist’s painting process behind the artist’s back and can watch him experimenting with perspective, using photography as a way of ‘Drawing with a camera’ and capturing the passing time in his polaroid collages.

The show is arranged in six thematic sections ‘Perspective Lesson’, ‘Hockney, Drawing a Stage’, ‘Roads and Paths, ‘Drawing with a Camera’, ‘Pools”, and ‘Looking Closely’.

These pieces included “A Bigger Splash,” which freezes the dynamic moment of a diver’s splash in a sun-drenched pool in California, and “Pearbloosom Hwy., 11-18^th April 1986 (Second Version),” a photographic collage that weaves together a deserted Southern California landscape with fragmented snapshots.

David Hockney is a renowned artist who has both artistry and high marketability.

One of his most famous works, Portrait of an Artist, is now the most expensive of any living artist’s works in the world.

In this exhibition, people will be able to see, hear, and feel his signature swimming pool and photography collages capturing the passing times in addition to overwhelming natural sceneries.

His spirit of challenging himself by using new technology even at the age of nearly 90 sets a good example not only for artists but also for the general public.

“Bigger & Closer (not smaller & further away)” runs through May 31, 2024 at Lightroom Seoul.

Kyujin Joung
Grade 10
Yongsan High School