David Hockney ’s Portraits: It’s hard to know where I end, and they begin.

Yes, David Hockney has gone back to painting portraits. And, according to the master, there is as much of him in the painting as there is of the subject. His statement ‘It’s hard to know where I end, and they begin’ is the leitmotif of the exhibit.

In the Ca’ Pesaro Museum in Venice, Italy, the exhibition ‘82 portraits and 1 still life’ by David Hockney is showing. Over the course of the last four years or so, he has painted portraits mainly of people who mean something in his life. There are friends, assistants, dealers, housekeepers, and – some of – their children depicted.

With some of the portraits, David Hockney gives some more information as to the circumstances of the ‘sit’ and what his relationship is to the subject. These are the more interesting portraits, because they come alive more than the others.

For instance, in one of the portraits, there is a lady depicted who had just lost her father. Looking at the painting, you already think she is not looking happy. Giving the background information explains that. And he goes on to explain that they rescheduled their ‘sitting’ and that he in the meantime painted the 1 still life that is part of the exhibit. A bench with fruits.

It’s, therefore, a pity that with a number of them, he only states ‘longtime friend’. But from the faces, and to some extent the body posture, you do get a peek at the person behind it anyway. Or inside it. And that even though he doesn’t paint much detail. His style is somewhere in between impressionist, or expressionist considering the color palette, and realist.

Apart from the subject, he kept the rest of the painting ‘the same’. The wall, the floor, and the chair are constants in the pictures. Ok, he changes the colors of the wall and floor around sometimes, or they are a slightly different hue, minor detail, but that same background focusses your attention to the person in the middle. And that is of course what it’s all about.

And the postures that people came up with to be painted in, are somehow more varied than you would expect. These are also giving you clues about the person depicted, of course. As well as the clothes they choose to be painted in. Some of them really took this seriously and came in a gala outfit. They came to be ‘immortalized’. Others just sat in their everyday attire, kind of smiling away. Very telling about the person, of course.

At the back of the exhibition, there is a wall with visitor’s own versions of a Hockney’s portrait. The backdrop and chair are also there. It’s part of the program for visiting school classes. To involve them in the show. They can ‘put themselves in the picture’, so to speak. And that is a great way of raising interest in modern art with young people, I think.

David Hockney ’s Portraits exhibition runs until 22 October 2017, after which it will go on to the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, where it will show from 10 November 2017 until 25 February 2018, and the LA County Museum of Art, USA, showing there from 1 April to 29 July 2018.

The Museum of Architecture presents the exhibition project «The architecture of the stadiums» timed to the 21st FIFA World Cup.

The championship will be the main sporting event of 2018 and will be held at 12 stadiums in 11 cities of Russia. Sports arenas are of particular importance in such events. Their architecture embodies the most current trends of their time.
The Museum has a unique collection of materials that reveal the almost century-long history of the stadiums construction and design in the USSR. The exhibition’s purpose is to acquaint the society with little-studied and previously not exhibited materials on the history of the construction of sports objects in our country.

The first part of the exhibition is historical.

It consists of architectural drawings and photos of the realized projects. There will be revealed the history of the legendary Moscow stadium “Dynamo”, sports complex in Luzhniki, “Kirov Stadium” in Leningrad, sports arenas in Minsk, Yerevan, Kiev and other cities of the country. The stadiums were designed by such outstanding Soviet architects as Nikolay Kolly, Nikolay Ladovsky, Dmitry Iofan, Alexander Vlasov and many others. The exhibition will show the evolution and diversity of different types of buildings – from U-shaped stadiums with two playing fields, athletics arenas with a motorcycle track to multi-functional complexes of the modernism era.

The second part is modern.

It is dedicated to the arenas where the matches of this year’s championship will be held. The exposition will include not only models, projects and photos of new and reconstructed stadiums, but also materials on the best foreign sports objects built for international competitions of last decades.
Thematic lectures, excursions in several languages, as well as conferences and discussions with leading architects are planned within the framework of the exhibition. The inclusive program consists of tactile copies of three-dimensional exhibits, guided tours in sign language and accompanying texts in Braille.

David Hockney ’s Portraits: It’s hard to know where I end, and they begin.

Yes, David Hockney has gone back to painting portraits. And, according to the master, there is as much of him in the painting as there is of the subject. His statement ‘It’s hard to know where I end, and they begin’ is the leitmotif of the exhibit.

In the Ca’ Pesaro Museum in Venice, Italy, the exhibition ‘82 portraits and 1 still life’ by David Hockney is showing. Over the course of the last four years or so, he has painted portraits mainly of people who mean something in his life. There are friends, assistants, dealers, housekeepers, and – some of – their children depicted.

With some of the portraits, David Hockney gives some more information as to the circumstances of the ‘sit’ and what his relationship is to the subject. These are the more interesting portraits, because they come alive more than the others.

For instance, in one of the portraits, there is a lady depicted who had just lost her father. Looking at the painting, you already think she is not looking happy. Giving the background information explains that. And he goes on to explain that they rescheduled their ‘sitting’ and that he in the meantime painted the 1 still life that is part of the exhibit. A bench with fruits.

It’s, therefore, a pity that with a number of them, he only states ‘longtime friend’. But from the faces, and to some extent the body posture, you do get a peek at the person behind it anyway. Or inside it. And that even though he doesn’t paint much detail. His style is somewhere in between impressionist, or expressionist considering the color palette, and realist.

Apart from the subject, he kept the rest of the painting ‘the same’. The wall, the floor, and the chair are constants in the pictures. Ok, he changes the colors of the wall and floor around sometimes, or they are a slightly different hue, minor detail, but that same background focusses your attention to the person in the middle. And that is of course what it’s all about.

And the postures that people came up with to be painted in, are somehow more varied than you would expect. These are also giving you clues about the person depicted, of course. As well as the clothes they choose to be painted in. Some of them really took this seriously and came in a gala outfit. They came to be ‘immortalized’. Others just sat in their everyday attire, kind of smiling away. Very telling about the person, of course.

At the back of the exhibition, there is a wall with visitor’s own versions of a Hockney’s portrait. The backdrop and chair are also there. It’s part of the program for visiting school classes. To involve them in the show. They can ‘put themselves in the picture’, so to speak. And that is a great way of raising interest in modern art with young people, I think.

David Hockney ’s Portraits exhibition runs until 22 October 2017, after which it will go on to the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, where it will show from 10 November 2017 until 25 February 2018, and the LA County Museum of Art, USA, showing there from 1 April to 29 July 2018.