I have never been busier,” says David Hockney, painter, national treasure, smoking advocate and fervent libertarian, now aged 85, cigarette in hand. He’s dressed in a newly tailored black corduroy suit, with a badge on each lapel saying “End Bossiness Soonest”. The word “Soonest” is his own addition, an insistent reminder to self.
Sitting at the kitchen table in his London studio, two packets of Camels at the ready, he explains his most ambitious art show so far in a 60-year career. It’s a 4D cinematic immersion experience using his paintings, photographs, opera sets, drawings, and collages, with music and voices (well, actually only one voice – his), all projected by 27 multi-focus cameras onto four 11-metre-high walls in a cavernous underground space.
