15 Comments
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Jelle Dehaes's avatar

Interesting piece. I didn’t know that Hockney worked with Polaroids. I also enjoy the playful side of literature, not only in form, intertextuality and meta-layers, but also in the language itself. What exactly are you referring to when you talk about Paul Auster? In my next post, I’m going to write something about him and his fictional art and collaboration with Sophie Calle.

And to answer your last question: I’m going to experiment a bit with Substack, to give the many references and philosophical winks in my novel a place within a kind of footnote system, which I still need to think through. I'm tied to Substack's limitations, but I also see many possibilities, just like Hockney with his iPad work.

Kathleen Clare Waller's avatar

Jelle, thanks for such a thoughtful comment. Yes, it sounds like you are going to experiment in some interesting ways here. I always find it helpful to consider other mediums.

Re Paul Auster - I also published a series on him here which you can check out if you're interested. I am a little obsessed with his work! Here, I was thinking about the way he uses philosphical layers but also the way that as he got older, he perhaps experimented less with surrealism and more with narrative devices or even text types. His Wayne Wang collabs were earlier on but he got political, talked about photography, then that Burning Boy tome, and his final work was so seemingly ordinary but packed with fascinating questions about memory and relationships, stated in such a unique way. Sorry for the run-ons! Does this make sense? I don't know as much about Calle and would love to see your work on both.

Thanks again!

Angela Dacres-Dixon's avatar

Extremely interesting and thought provoking. I am a lover of Hockney’s art too. Thank you Kate

Kathleen Clare Waller's avatar

Thanks for taking the time to comment, Angela. Happy you enjoyed it!

Jeffrey Streeter's avatar

A really interesting post, Kate. I saw a Hockney exhibition in Tokyo a while back and I found it similarly impressive.

Kathleen Clare Waller's avatar

Thanks Jeffrey! Cool that he’s made it in Japan, too. I guess he’s really got global appeal. Some of his landscapes remind me a bit if Edo period work.

Jeffrey Streeter's avatar

Interesting point about Edo!

perfectlight's avatar

i love hockney, he was an inspiration - from him i learned about collages in a way that i've never seen before. also i watched lots of interviews and documentaries with him.

Kathleen Clare Waller's avatar

Oh nice, thanks for reading! I have to check out more of the documentaries. Any specific recs?

perfectlight's avatar

oh, i'm very bad at remembering the names of movies/documentaries but i remember that sky arts had him in the series "masters at work"

Kathleen Clare Waller's avatar

No worries, I’ll have a look around :)

Chandler Grey's avatar

"What I am trying to do is to bring people closer to something." Yes! What an interesting piece - thank you.

Kathleen Clare Waller's avatar

Thanks for the kind comment, Chandler. Yes, that line really struck me from his explanation of the show.

Jules's avatar

I'm sure he can!

Fascinating ideas as usual, and an endlessly fascinating artist. Thanks Kate, I really enjoyed this.

Kathleen Clare Waller's avatar

Thanks so much, Jules!