David Hockney & James Sellars: Haplomatics

David Hockney, Illustration for James Sellars’ “Haplomatics,” 1988, Xerographic print from original drawing on Parsons Linen Ledger paper, Sheet Dimension: 11 × 17 in. (27.9 × 43.2 cm),Gift of Robert Black, Elliott Fredouelle, and Gary Knoble, 2020.1.7
 David Hockney, Illustration for James Sellars’ “Haplomatics,” 1988, Xerographic print from original drawing on Parsons Linen Ledger paper, Sheet Dimension: 11 × 17 in. (27.9 × 43.2 cm),Gift of Robert Black, Elliott Fredouelle, and Gary Knoble, 2020.1.7,

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

David Hockney & James Sellars: Haplomatics

Haplomatics explores the wild realm of pseudo-scientific fantasy in the visual textual, and musical collaboration between the artist David Hockney and the composer James Sellars.

Their work together in the late 1980s became a synergy of art, technology, and music that resulted in a multi-media masterpiece, the animated film Haplomatics. The film introduces a genus of abstract beings called Haplomes, which come to life through Hockney’s prints and Sellars’s narration and innovative musical score. Haplomatics, the exhibition, features Hockney’s innovations in printmaking with the thirty-five xerographic prints that were used to create the film’s visual effects. Drawn from the collection of the New Britain Museum of American Art, Hockney’s xerographs will be displayed alongside the complete film for its first public debut.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue, Haplomatics: An Automated Techno-Fantasy by James Sellars and David Hockney by Thomas Schuttenhelm (Hirmer Publications, forthcoming 2024). The book will serve as a companion to the exhibition and provide insight and access to a rare yet significant work. In addition to reproducing the Hockney Haplomes and the full text of Haplomatics, the book will provide a detailed chronicle of the collaboration between Sellars and Hockney and describe the intersectional ties that exist between the text, music, images, and the animated video. The publication can function as an introduction and handbook for Haplomatics, an exhibition booklet, and a micro-biography of the era and the artists.

 


Sponsors:

David Hockney & James Sellars: Haplomatics is made possible by the generosity of The Robert Black Foundation Trust.

This exhibition has been generously supported by The Saunders Foundation.