In February of this year I travelled to Sydney for what really was a rather Arty weekend. I saw the Anish Kapoor show at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Circular Quay (very good … so good I took the kids up to see it a couple of weeks ago) … I saw Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry performing at the Sydney Opera House in their legendary duo (+ band) Dead Can Dance which brought me to tears on more than one occasion with it’s power and sheer beauty.
I also went to see the Francis Bacon show at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
Now let’s get this out there first … I’m not a huge fan of Francis Bacon … none of his works feature near the top of any of my lists of favourite art but I do respect his work. I find it uncomfortable and violent, visceral and gutsy. I like that I feel something from his art even if it makes me uncomfortable. There’s a certain violence in his work … it’s been said that he was ismply repsonding to the violence and opression he saw and felt around him. I think he was brave or perhaps he just didn’t care … I respect that he kept going and going … thoroughly obsessed by his work and not caring whether it was liked or not. I think he did care and the angst in his pictures is, to me a demonstration of just how deeply he felt.
There was a large collection of his paintings and sketches, over 50 in all, along with books and and detritus from his studio. Then there were the photographs… they were what affected me the most. The photos were placed in simple frames that were deep enough to allow the crumpled prints to breathe. The photos were scrunched and ripped, taped back together, creased and stained, torn … I imagined them cried over … the tears falling onto them after the passing of his lover, I imagined them being scrunched into a ball and thrown in anger after an argument, unfolded and pressed flat by hands, left under whatever else occupied the artist’s mind at the time… they had patina.
In short: they were loved
At a time when our culture is obsessed by perfection, the smooth and the wrinkle free, these photographs spoke of life and how it is messy and sticky and visceral and at times violent. I think we forget that or it somehow suits us to forget that. I realised I had been looking at them a long time transfixed by these thoughts and resolved to write them down … to blog them … I forgot – distracted by whatever else was going on in my life … the new and shiny smooth wrinkle free objects of my attention.
I said I’m not a huge fan of Francis Bacon but re-redading my post I think just might be.
Are you moved by art? … I think some of you might be…
Very interesting piece. I am not familiar with Francis Bacon. I always thought that he was sopme kind of philosopher but maybe that is some other kind of bacon??!! Ignorant that I!!! But in all honesty I am in general very ignorant when it comes to art in general although I have seen many fine works. May this summer I will un-ignorant myself!! Thank you for the inspiration!!
Thanks Marialla … go take yourself to a gallery and look around … there’s plenty to see and move you 🙂
That sounds like quite a weekend in Sydney.
And yes, art moves me. Often and lots. Sculpture, ceramics, water colours, oils, photography… And the list goes on. And my life would be diminished without it.
It was a fabulous weekend in Sydney … I’m hoping to do similar again soon. I like to think we’d miss art if it were not there 🙂
yes, you definitely sound like you are a fan of his work. sounds like how I feel about joseph boys. aesthetically I really don’t like his work, but it definitely fascinates me to no end!
I think if you mean Bueys then yes … I don’t claim to ‘get’ his work but I think sometimes I do … it’s fleeting and, for me inexplicable …
Me a fan of Bacon? Certainly sounds like it hey? 🙂
My life is seeped in the arts, especially the visual arts. My mother was an abstract expressionist in the 50s, 60s, 70s. Your post spoke volumes about the critical importance of creativity in our lives. Strangely, technology has moved us into a visual culture, and mostly for the good. But it has also inundated us with so much in our visual field that we get lost and so does what we see. Much becomes unnoticed, unseen. That’s one of the services of exhibitions and venues that show art. They give us a space to contemplate and respond. That reaction, hopefully, unravels slowly into one’s life. We do not always have to like or love a work to have it bring us insight (as you point out). As you know, art (in all its forms) serves to open us up and question. Great post.
I think you touch on something important here Sally. The space that exhibition space give us is perhaps as important as the art itself … with a contemplative space art can easily get lost in the visual noise surrounding us.
I am a fan of Frances Bacon but like you, his work grew on me. Initially, the bold hot emotion may be off putting, but yes, the “truthiness” is there. I fully embrace it.
It’s confronting but the power is undeniable
Very well written and touching in its (your) own way. I can imagine you standing there in front of these pictures, maybe moving slowly back and forth from one to another while at the same time thoughts are swirling and and words are forming in your head.
As for the matter of art as such, sometimes you have to grow into it at your own pace and discover what you want it to be. I’ve seen the work of many famous artists in the past, whether it was somewhere online, in books or museums, on the streets, hurried through the labyrinth of aisles in the Louvre just to glimpse at the Mona Lisa. But even though I acknowledge the work of these artists, most of them don’t touch me in any way or at least make me curious which is something I find to become more and more important with time. I think photography made me a little bit more sensitive to aware of art as such but maybe it just happened to come all at the same time.
I’m not really familiar with the work of Francis Bacon but when I read your post, I remembered an article about Bacon shared by one of my favourite artists a while ago which I found very interesting because it allowed to see behind the curtain of his life and work. If you can relate to an artist in some way and understand maybe a little bit what might have been driving him, that is also something good. The article also mentioned that a few years after his death, Bacon’s old studio was completely dismantled and moved with all its contents to Dublin where everyting was put back together again as it was for a permanent exhibition. They even collected every single flake of dust and scattered it over the finished installation. Thinking of it now makes me want to go to Dublin 🙂
Thanks V 🙂
I didn’t know that about the flakes of dust scattered (like ashes perhaps?) over what is essentially a reconstruction of the artist … does sound cool … and one of those rare, over-the-top arty things somehow missing from the rest of life.
I was standing there before the photographs for a time too … long enough to forget I was standing there 🙂
Scattered like ashes indeed 🙂 Here's the quote from the article:
"After the London studio had been carefully emptied and its contents packed for shipping, the archaeologists had swept up all the remaining dust from the floor and put it in a bag that was simply labeled “Bacon dust.” The bag—which, like one of Ward’s Hoover bags, must have included Bacon’s own sloughed skin—was scattered like ashes over the final installation. "
Source: http://cabinetmagazine.org/issues/35/turner.php
Wow … I get the desire for fidelity but lordy you wouldn’t want to inhale that shit…
Geoff, have just come from your great sausage post . . . . Your words here on Francis Bacon are so touching. I have always adored his work, so rich, gentle, sumptuous, delicate but so viscerally raw. His self portrait, a reflection of fear. His dreamy tryptichs. And that awesome grungy studio of his from where it all came . . . as you say, we are obsessed with perfection, but love is a messy business.
Thanks Patti 🙂
I found myself more touched by the Bacon show than I was expecting and that’s always a good thing when it comes to both Art and Love.
Hi Geoff, very interesting post. I particularly liked this: 'In short: [the images] were loved. At a time when our culture is obsessed by perfection, the smooth and the wrinkle-free, these photographs spoke of life and how it is messy and sticky and visceral and at times violent. I think we forget that or it somehow suits us to forget that.' So very true. Without getting all wanky about it, I'm sure that our perception of perfection comes from imperfection as much as its opposite. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks Nigel, my pleasure. No light without dark eh? I have to confess that I had a vision of Kenny Everett and his television arts philosophy compere character saying “…and yet…” when I read your comment … it was fleeting but present and intended in the nicest possible way 🙂