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Description: Research project and blog investigating the impact of Theatre on Curatorial practice. Mona Casey - Artist / Curator.
“Hockney also began to experiment with theatricality, as in the 1963 paintings The Hypnotist, Two Friend and Two Curtains, Play within a Play and Closing Scene . This is often a literal theatricality, with curtains and staged spaces.” 1.
It is at the David Hockney retrospective at the Georges Pompidou, that I first got to see the painting The Hypnotist , a work made in the early stages of Hockney’s long career. A gold frame encompasses a green curtain, which marks the stage, the setting of the work. There are two male figures in the picture plane facing one another. The Hypnotist to the left of the image in furious concentration, hands raised and to the right a ruddy cheeked, blond and younger male in red. The chasm between them is transgre
There is something sinister in this power relation between the older and the younger male. The red clothing of the younger almost, if not a cassock, are suggestive of the clothing worn by choir boys. The male in black appears more like a religious figure, in his uniform. A not fully articulated and ghost-like form appears to be realising itself behind the boy. The question is how powerful is the dominant male, is it power over or some sort of transference to the younger one that he is trying to achieve? Th
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