Art is famously subjective.
It divides opinion. What one person may find boring another may find beautiful, and vice versa.
All that being said, a newly unveiled art installation by British artist David Hockney in London certainly seems to have united people.
Commissioned for a city tourism campaign, and revealed on Twitter on Tuesday by London mayor Sadiq Khan, the artworks are on display at Piccadilly Circus Tube station:
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Khan's tweet has 7,000 replies and over 5,000 quote tweets, which probably tells you a lot of what you need to know about the response so far.
But the general public sentiment is probably best summed up by this tweet:
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Yep — in short, people didn't share the mayor's sentiments, especially about that weirdly dropped final letter. And they didn't hold back making their feelings known.
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Others weren't shy about sharing their own artistic efforts, either.
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The Hockney commission is part of the larger £7 million "Let's Do London" campaign announced on Monday, which aims to bring local tourism back to the capital — following the lifting of nationwide lockdowns — through a series of events and art installations. As well as the the Piccadilly Circus sign, Hockney has also created video artwork for the large light screen outside the station, while designer Yinka Ilori is working on a series of streetscape commissions for the city.
The idea is to throw the spotlight back on London, and — although maybe not for the reasons intended — Hockney's Piccadilly Circus work has certainly done that.
But as other people pointed out, there are a lot of other artists out there, too, many of whom have had a tough time during the pandemic with galleries closed and grant money harder to come by. Maybe this commission could have been an opportunity to launch an exciting new talent?
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