DON’T MISS


Still on and still great


QUICK LIGHT 


ALEX KATZ: Heaven for lovers of


painting, this exhibition of portraits and landscapes by the great American


artist is without a doubt the showof the summer. à Serpentine Gallery.  Lancaster Gate. Until Sep 11. Free.


MARY HEILMANN 


Expect dazzlingly colourful abstract paintings and some lovely ceramics in


this collection of work by the Californian artist. à Whitechapel Gallery.  Whitechapel. Until Aug 21. Free.


SPIRIT DRAWINGS 


GEORGIANA HOUGHTON:


Stunning psychedelic drawings from a lost nineteenth-century visionary.


à Courtauld Gallery. Temple. Until Sep 11. £9.


WOLFGANG TILLMANS 


The Turner Prize-winning German photographer goes all political.


à Maureen Paley. Bethnal Green. Until Jul 31. Free.


but only about the process: the act of painting the same thing for hundreds of days. No matter who these people are – how rich, powerful or influential they may be – Hockney has painted them in the same way, removed every semblance of character from them and turned them into Hockneys. He has imposed himself on them and dominated these characters. Make no mistake, this is about him, not them. That’s why the still-life is the best work here, it’s like he’s saying there’s no difference between some bananas and Rothschild, they’re all going to end up as a Hockney painting. The only sitters who really manage to hold


their own are the teenagers and kids. They all look so bored, so unenthralled by the master and desperate to be anywhere but stuck in that studio. Their teenage arrogance wins out over his.


Hockney’s flatness – his cold, brutal approach


– combined with the general poor quality of many of these portraits makes them hard to love. Limbs seem to extend too far and at weird angles, hands look bulbous and unattached, faces bulge, lines smear uncertainly. Some of the paintings are better than others, some aren’t even that bad, but Hockney doesn’t really come close to any of his past portraiture, in terms of either execution or emotion. The whole show works best from a distance, as


a monumental wash of pink flesh and flat blues and greens. As one big work of art, this is a massive statement, it’s Hockney stamping his presence over everything, screaming ‘I’m still here!’ And we should all be pretty glad that he is, even if this really isn’t him at his best.■Eddy Frankel


89 July 5 – 11 2016 Time Out London


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