ExhibitionSeptember 20, 2019
Bacon, In Words
The Centre Pompidou continues its re-examination of key 20th century works by devoting a major exhibition to Francis Bacon. The exhibition, on view from September 11 to January 20, 2020, curated by Didier Ottinger, offers an innovative exploration of the influence of literature in Francis Bacon’s painting.
There are six rooms along the visitor route, placing literature at the heart of the exhibition, that includes readings of extracts from texts taken from Francis Bacon’s library: Mathieu Almaric, Carlo Brandt, Hippolyte Girardot, Denis Podalydes and Laurent Poitrenaux read from Aeschylus, Nietzsche, Bataille, Leiris, Conrad and Eliot. Not only did these authors inspire Bacon’s work and motifs directly, they also shared a poetic world, forming a ‘spiritual family’ the artist identified with.
The inventory of Francis Bacon’s library, undertaken by the Department of History of art and architecture at Trinity College Dublin, lists more than a thousand works. While denying any ‘narrative’ exegesis in his work, Francis Bacon, nevertheless admitted that literature represented a powerful stimulus for his imagination. rather than giving shape to a story, poetry, novels and philosophy inspired a ‘general atmosphere’; ‘images’ which emerged like the Furies in his paintings.
The exhibition at the Centre Pompidou focuses on works produced by Bacon in the last two decades of his career. It consists of sixty paintings (including 12 triptychs, in addition to a series of portraits and self-portraits) from major private and public collections. From 1971 to 1992 (the year of the artist’s death), his painting style was marked by its simplification and intensification. His colours acquired new depth, drawn from a unique chromatic register of yellow, pink and saturated orange.
1971 was a turning point for Bacon; the exhibition at the Grand Palais earned him international acclaim, while the tragic death of his partner, just a few days before the exhibition opened, gave way to a period marked by guilt and represented by a proliferation of the symbolic and mythological form of the erinyes (the Furies of Greek mythology) in his work. The ‘Black’ Triptychs painted in memory of his deceased friend (In Memory of George Dyer, 1971, Triptych–August 1972 and Triptych, May–June 1973), all presented at the exhibition, commemorate this loss.
The Centre Pompidou will also be organizing several events linked to the Bacon, In Words exhibition. The Bacon, a French Passion seminar will explore, in particular, Bacon’s influence on a number of authors, such as Hervé Guibert, Claude Simon, Gilles Deleuze, Didier Anzieu or Philippe Sollers. The 2019 edition of the Extra! Festival, devoted to non-book literature, will organise several evenings around Bacon (readings, performances, projected, visual or digital literature, sound poetry, etc.).
For more information visit: https://www.centrepompidou.fr
There are six rooms along the visitor route, placing literature at the heart of the exhibition, that includes readings of extracts from texts taken from Francis Bacon’s library: Mathieu Almaric, Carlo Brandt, Hippolyte Girardot, Denis Podalydes and Laurent Poitrenaux read from Aeschylus, Nietzsche, Bataille, Leiris, Conrad and Eliot. Not only did these authors inspire Bacon’s work and motifs directly, they also shared a poetic world, forming a ‘spiritual family’ the artist identified with.
The inventory of Francis Bacon’s library, undertaken by the Department of History of art and architecture at Trinity College Dublin, lists more than a thousand works. While denying any ‘narrative’ exegesis in his work, Francis Bacon, nevertheless admitted that literature represented a powerful stimulus for his imagination. rather than giving shape to a story, poetry, novels and philosophy inspired a ‘general atmosphere’; ‘images’ which emerged like the Furies in his paintings.
The exhibition at the Centre Pompidou focuses on works produced by Bacon in the last two decades of his career. It consists of sixty paintings (including 12 triptychs, in addition to a series of portraits and self-portraits) from major private and public collections. From 1971 to 1992 (the year of the artist’s death), his painting style was marked by its simplification and intensification. His colours acquired new depth, drawn from a unique chromatic register of yellow, pink and saturated orange.
1971 was a turning point for Bacon; the exhibition at the Grand Palais earned him international acclaim, while the tragic death of his partner, just a few days before the exhibition opened, gave way to a period marked by guilt and represented by a proliferation of the symbolic and mythological form of the erinyes (the Furies of Greek mythology) in his work. The ‘Black’ Triptychs painted in memory of his deceased friend (In Memory of George Dyer, 1971, Triptych–August 1972 and Triptych, May–June 1973), all presented at the exhibition, commemorate this loss.
The Centre Pompidou will also be organizing several events linked to the Bacon, In Words exhibition. The Bacon, a French Passion seminar will explore, in particular, Bacon’s influence on a number of authors, such as Hervé Guibert, Claude Simon, Gilles Deleuze, Didier Anzieu or Philippe Sollers. The 2019 edition of the Extra! Festival, devoted to non-book literature, will organise several evenings around Bacon (readings, performances, projected, visual or digital literature, sound poetry, etc.).
For more information visit: https://www.centrepompidou.fr
