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From: Clem
Category: Art
Date: 11 September 2008
Time: 01:55 PM
Review:
Its Bacons self evident greatness as a painter,(even on just a technical level these paintings are
extraordinary) ,coupled with a masochistically self deprecating honesty about the limits of existence(
theres apparently no redemption here,sir, just blood on the pavement), that still never fails to get on
some peoples nerves. Critical orthodoxy has it that he went downhill from the sixties on, and some
critics still try to damn Bacon with accusations of mannerism and artificiality (Adrian Searle called him
this week an "authentic fake"), but I hate to disappoint all you anti-Bacons, but this work lives on in the
present tense.
Is Bacon better than Picasso? He certainly has a greater intense identification with his
subjects.The faces, especially the men from the 1950s, when you get up close, are disarmingly
delicate.In the sixties its almost like he goes pop, and in comes the extraordinary saturated hues, like
the blue in "Isabel Rawsthorne in Soho".The recent Roman Abramovich bought 44 million pound
triptych from the 80s is dramatically convulsive, and amazing as it may sound, well worth the
money.The centre depicts Prometheus(?) having his liver plucked by a vulture, and painful as it is, you
can actually feel it.
The gold frames and glass work really well, raising and dignifying the paintings and giving them a
nice right wing elegance.Idealogues, realist painters, idealists,dogmatists and religious zealots, will
all hate this show, almost as much as I hated Work no.850 by Martin Creed in the Duveen Galleries.
Apologies to Sebastian Coe and those that want to bring sport and art together, but this piece of "art"
is really, really, really shit.