Paris metro bans Hockney exhibition posters: artist is pictured smoking

No advertising, in the Paris metro, for the David Hockney exhibition scheduled at the Fondation Louis Vuitton from April 9 to August 31, curated by Norman Rosenthal. The reason? In the image, the popular British painter, who will turn 88 next July 9, is pictured holding a cigarette. Breaking the news is the British newspaper The Independent. According to the newspaper, lawyers for the company that runs the Parisian transport network reportedly contacted Hockney to inform him that the photograph of him sitting next to a new self-portrait cannot be used to advertise the exhibition, precisely because the artist is holding a cigarette. And he is caught behind him holding his painting titled Play within a Play and Me with a Cigarette: also in the painting the painter holds a cigarette. Incidentally, lawyers for the Paris Metro would also let Hockney know that the painting, in itself, would not cause any problems. The problem is really him in the picture caught smoking.

Hockney, it is known, is a heavy smoker. A few years ago, he told the Sunday Times that “three doctors told me I had to stop smoking, now they’re all dead.” And harsh was his reaction to the Paris Metro’s decision. Thus he told theIndependent, “The arrogance of those in charge of our lives knows no bounds. To hear a Metro lawyer ban an image is bad enough, but for them to mention the difference between a photograph and a painting seems to me to be total madness. They only object to the photograph, even though I am also smoking in the painting I am holding! I am used to people’s authoritarian meddling preventing people from making their own choices, but this is mean. Art has always been an avenue for free expression, and this is a sad decision.”

According to Hockney, smoking is firmly intertwined with his art. But beyond that, it is also a habit he does not intend to give up, so much so that he has always opposed bans. When the smoking ban, which later came into effect two years later, began to be debated in the United Kingdom in 2005, the painter showed up at the Labour Party congress carrying a sign that read “Death awaits you all, even if you smoke.” And on several occasions he reiterated that he would continue to smoke until the end of his days.

“He’s 87 years old and he’s smoked, I don’t know, maybe 100 cigarettes a day and he’s still smoking,” says curator Rosenthal. “His lungs are not in good condition and he still accepts it. For him, smoking is a symbol of freedom. He does not like to hear from the cigarette box some dreadful frightening warning. He is very conscious of his physical frailty, but his mind is as clear as his memory.” On the fact itself, Rosenthal commented, “Madness reigns. Such censorship on a poster promoting one of the greatest exhibitions by a living artist in a generation is beyond comprehension. Paris is a city of freedom and revolution, shrouded in its history: this measure is in stark contrast to all that. It makes no sense. But at least the exhibition is brilliant: it is the biggest art exhibition ever on Hockney, the greatest British painter.”

It is curious that this ban on Hockney should come in a city whose image is inextricably linked to that of cafes full of people smoking, and where Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings depicting smokers abound. But, it will be said, times have changed. However, this is not the first time that an exhibition has had an incident related to ... subways. In December 2017, in fact, the London Underground censored some posters featuring Egon Schiele nudes that were meant to advertise exhibitions on the Austrian artist in Vienna. And the Vienna Tourist Board responded by sending posters with the same images, but censored with the words “SORRY, 100 years old but still too daring today” (“We are sorry, they are 100 years old but still too daring”). Will Hockney come up with such a response? We shall see.

Paris metro bans Hockney exhibition posters: artist is pictured smoking

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