Hockney's In the Dull Village

A History of the World in 100 Objects

BBC

History

4.4 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 19 October 2010

⏱️ 13 minutes

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Summary

This week Neil MacGregor's history of the world is examining the forces that helped shape our way of life and ways of thinking today. He began with the political revolution that exploded In Russia in the 1920s and today he moves on to the sexual revolution of the 1960s. He explores the emergence of legally enshrined human rights and the status of sexuality around the world. He tells the story with the aid of a David Hockney print, one of a series that was made in 1966 as the decriminalisation of homosexuality was being planned, at least in Britain. We hear from David Hockney on the spirit of the decade and from Shami Chakrabarti, the director of the human rights group Liberty Producer: Anthony Denselow

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thank you for downloading this episode of a history of the world in a hundred objects
0:07.0	from BBC Radio 4.
0:10.0	In the 1960s public campaigns in Europe and America asserted the right of every citizen
0:18.4	black white male female straight or gay to exercise their basic freedoms as long as they caused no harm to others.
0:26.0	In Britain there was also a sexual revolution, the contraceptive pill, women's liberation,
0:39.6	and the legalization of homosexuality. Today's object is an etching by the British artist David
0:46.0	Hockney. It shows a pair of lovers in bed. There are two men and it could hardly have been published any earlier than the year it was,
0:55.9	1967 because until then homosexual acts in Britain were outlawed.
1:02.0	Then you couldn't be gay but you could smoke everywhere.
1:05.0	Now it's the other way round.
1:08.0	I mean, story of my life, huh?
1:10.0	I think that this is a wonderful image to represent what human rights are all about.
1:19.0	A history of the world in a hundred objects. Hockney's in the dull village, an etching made in England in 1966.
1:37.0	An etching made in England in 1966.
1:45.0	Two naked young men, half covered by a blanket, lies side by side in bed.
1:57.0	We're looking down at them from the foot of the bed.
2:00.0	One lies with his arms behind his head, his eyes closed as though dozing, while the other lies
2:05.1	looking eagerly at him.
2:07.4	We've got no idea whether the relationship between the two men is recent or of long standing, but at first sight this looks like a calm, entirely satisfactory
2:16.7	mourning after.
2:18.8	It's one of a series of Hockney etchings inspired by the poems of the Greek poet
2:23.2	Constantine Kavafi. It was published in 1967 just as Parliament passed the
	...

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