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WAITING FOR HOCKNEY (2008) is a fascinating documentary, not about what constitutes art, but what constitutes whether the art world is going to perceive an artist or a dumb slob who likes to make pictures. That's what the art world does - and it will revolt you to see how they do it.
Billy Pappas, a very self-insulated and autistic young man with a fine talent for draftsmanship, worked just over 8 years on a microscopically realistic (we call it "hyperrealistic") portrait of Marilyn Monroe. Somehow he got the wacky notion that famous artist David Hockney was a kindred spirit and could validate the work - Billy knowing that he'd conquered an unconquered level of portraiture-with-a-pencil, Billy knowing that only Hockney could realize what he'd done and proclaim Billy's genius.
Things don't work out that way. While I found this documentary format tiresome (dopey, whiny college-station music and lingering shots of Billy's eyes), I found his drawing to be a technical marvel. We artists all know technical marvels get you nowhere. That is where Billy got. Even after he landed a meeting with Hockney at Hockney's California home. Poor guy.
While Hockney remained notoriously silent about the whole thing, his 'entourage' praised Billy to the skies. When interviewed, they changed their tune, actually mocking him and his drawing. It's the art world! Did the poor guy really think he was getting somewhere? When Hockney forgot all about him (probably about an hour after Billy left Hockney's residence), Billy turned to Bill Gates, hoping for God knows what.
Billy was rewarded with a terse email saying Bill Gates "doesn't do this sort of thing" and ordering Billy to stop pursuing Gates. So much for the patrons and the philanthropists!Read more ›
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This movie is not about David Hockney -- he appears only in some still shots and snapshots made in his home during the filming. What the film is about is that you do no one a service and may end up looking like a dope by encouraging a person's unrealistic delusions. I doubt that's the message the filmmakers meant to deliver, but when you deal with reality, things may not turn out as you hope. The protagonist in this film is a young man who has produced a pencil sketch of a photo of Marilyn Monroe that he claims exhibits a degree of detail heretofore not achieved by an artist's hand. We are told he worked every day, full time, for 10 years on it. His technique involved using a needle-sharp drafting pencil to build the image a dot at a time. But since the sketch is only about 14 x 17 inches, we still may wonder what he was actually doing for all those hours. Apparently, at some point along the way, perhaps after the drawing was done, one of the artist's advisors planted the idea that the painter David Hockney was the very person to pass judgment on the sketch. It then became everyone's hope that Hockney would be so blown away as to become the young man's mentor and open doors to a great career in art. One might note that making ultra-realisitc sketches from photos seems about 180 degrees from what Hockney does, so he seems rather miscast in the role of benefactor, and this proves to be the case.
But perhaps the most intriguing feature is the number of grown-up people who abetted this young man all along the way. These include his parents and various others who should know better. One would think that surely someone with some knowledge of how you make a living in the art business would have happened along and pointed out that doing the world's most detailed sketch might be fun, but it is not the way to earn a steady income.
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