David Hockney’s Interview – Sunday Times

Having just read a hysterical interview of David Hockney by Jasper Gerard in the Sunday Times, here are some of the more amusing exercepts :

It was at the urinals that Hockney found himself next to the prime minister, Tony Blair. As one of Britain’s most famous living artists Hockney was at the Labour conference last week, fuming against the government’s proposed public smoking ban. He turned to Blair and said,“ You missed my speech .” Hockney claims that the PM didn’t recognize him and later said, “ I don’t think he has many aesthetic interests.’’

On entering a restaurant in Brighton , he lights a huge cigar, and as the waitress approachs, he says loudly as he is deaf , “ They say smoking is bad for you but they used to say the same about wanking , even if it was , you can always wear glasses .’’ (based on the old adage that wanking made you go blind) . At 68 , he smokes “ Ten a day and 20 at night “.

He says of Bob Geldof and Bono, “ A couple of Irish minstrels give a concert in Hyde Park and Tony Blair jumps to it, but millions march against a hunting ban and he ignores them.”

Having declared that he wants to paint the Yorkshire landscape comparing California (where he has lived for the last 30 years) with east Yorkshire as “big skies with amazing light “, he claims to be not acquainted with Damien Hirst’s spot paintings and says that though his works “may survive “ , he is rightfully less flattering about Tracey Emin. “No one really remembers Tracey’s images. When people tell you they are making art I take it with a pinch of salt. It is hard to define art.”

Hockney attended the Royal College of Art, “just at the time they adandoned the teaching of drawing. They thought the photograph had replaced it. I said to them,’Teaching people to draw is teaching people to look .”

On Gordon Brown, “He is grotesque, and why is he here rather than in the Scottish Parliament? He does not understand life .”

Finally he ends with,“ I don’t care what they call me , … “I was always expecting society to grow more and more out of step with me. I realise it might get worse.” He pauses and takes another drag on his Craven A. “I ponder things. Smokers do.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2092-1806962_3,00.html

Tag : David Hockney