Scriptwriter for David Hockney: Current

BACKGROUND: A major solo exhibition of one of the most influential living artists, David Hockney: Current was curated by the NGV's Contemporary Art curators in collaboration with David Hockney and his studio. Featuring more than 1200 works from the past decade of the artist's career, the exhibition had a particular focus on the artists' innovative explorations of drawing using new media. CONTRIBUTION: My contribution was as researcher and scriptwriter developing a 9,000-word manuscript for the podcast accompanying the exhibition. SIGNIFICANCE: The manuscript explored the context for David Hockney's recent work and his complex critical ideas around the history of western perspective and the dominance of photography, as well as his art historical research into techniques of the Old Masters published in his book Secret Knowledge. The script also quoted frequently from Hockney to transmit a sense of the artist's lively contrarian approach, which required substantial archival research. The 60-minute podcast drew together techniques and approaches from art history and criticism, documentary filmmaking, scriptwriting, radio and podcast production. The content was developed in collaboration with, and peer-reviewed by, senior curators of Contemporary Art at the NGV and narrated by literary editor of The Age Jason Steger. The 60-minute work expects to find an audience upwards of 16000+ (based on past figures) through iPod touch devices hired onsite plus downloads from the Hockney microsite, which will remain as an archive of the project into the future.