Cone Case

Medium: Xerox copy of facsimile drawing in four parts
Year: 1989
Each: 11 x 8 1/2 inches (28×22 cm)
Overall: 22×17 inches (56×43 cm)
Edition: Unknown

 

The artist faxed an unknown number of copies of this original work to his friends and associates. The original artwork is held by the David Hockney Foundation and these works are recognized as a Xeroxed copy of an original by the artist.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, David Hockney took to creating “art faxes” with fax machines, a device he referred to as “the wonderful machine, the enemy of totalitarianism, the return of handwritten letters.” Known for embracing emergent technologies in his process, Hockney was clearly delighted by novelty and dissemination possibilities that faxing offered – and he had no intention of the works maintaining much, if any, value. In 1989, he participated in the São Paolo Biennial “via fax,” according to the David Hockney Foundation. When the Brazilian telephone network was unable to receive the faxes, Hockney sent the faxes from room to room in a Los Angeles hotel, which were then packed in a suitcase to be taken to Brazil.

“The fax show in Brazil caused quite a stir. But many people saw the philosophical side, the interesting side, the use of printing to make original artworks. I assume that even though people think my work is very popular, it often takes them time to see what I am really doing, to see what it is that I am exploring, that it is not just a wild thing, but something that grows out of something else, and will grow into something else again.”

This particular work was faxed to famed film director Stanley Donen, perhaps best known for Singin’ In the Rain (1952), who was a friend to Hockney. Over time, Hockney would learn how to adapt his drawings to accommodate the fax machine, using an opaque grey in order for halftones to be apparent in the final work.

Source: LA Modern

 

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