Changing States: open studio at Francis Bacon's

(© Perry Ogden)

Ireland is a land of poets and writers, with big names like George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, WB Yeats, and so on. That the country also has something to offer in the field of the visual arts is illustrated by the exhibition “Changing States: Contemporary Irish Art & Francis Bacon’s Studio”, the key event of the Irish presidency of the Council of the European Union.

Artists’ studios are fascinating places. As a visitor you are quietly hoping for a glimpse of genius or of the process by which a work of art takes shape. One studio that really fires the imagination is that of Francis Bacon, the painter, gambler, and boozer whose paintings of screaming popes and ripped-open carcases keep on smashing auction records. From 1961 until his death in 1992 Bacon worked in a tiny studio in Reece Mews in South Kensington, London. “And to think that some of the most important paintings of the second half of the twentieth century were painted there,” remarked Barbara Dawson when we looked her up in Dublin. Dawson is the director of the city’s Hugh Lane Gallery. When Bacon died, his lover, John Edwards, donated the studio – with no fewer than 7,500 items in it – to the Dublin museum. Which brought Bacon’s work back where it belonged. For the artist was born in Ireland, although he left his homeland when he was sixteen.

(Three Figures © Francis Bacon)

In 2001 the Francis Bacon Studio, a reconstruction of his London studio, was opened to the public. It is a fascinating place, where you can still feel the artist’s existential restlessness. The floor is strewn with newspapers; there are books and magazines lying around everywhere. Pots of paint, cardboard boxes, and dirty tea towels are lit by frugal light bulbs. Everything is exactly the way the artist left it. The mirrors and walls are spattered with paint stains. “Instead of using a palette, Bacon painted on doors, plates, anything he could find,” observes Dawson. He himself called this “my only abstract paintings”. The reconstruction demanded a lot of meticulous drudgery. Every object was noted, brought to Dublin, and then reconstructed archaeologically.

Old masters, wildlife, and wrestlers
“It was an unprecedented museological project,” recalls Dawson. For two whole years a team sifted through the many boxes of material. Each item was recorded in a data bank. You can consult that interactive data bank, with its wealth of information, at the Bozar exhibition, which also includes photographs of the studio, alongside the artist’s research material. Bacon was a magpie, who based his paintings on the most varied sources – as you can see from the reproductions of works by old masters, photographs of skin diseases, African wildlife, wrestlers, etc. in the studio. The photographs are often creased and spattered with paint. “Bacon held them in his hand while he was painting,” explains Dawson. A number of late, sometimes unfinished, paintings offer a further insight into the working methods of one of the greatest painters of the twentieth century.

(Shifting Ground © Willie Doherty)

Although Alan Phelan’s studio on Dublin’s southside may not be in the same kind of state as Bacon’s, it is still pretty cluttered. Phelan has a couple of rooms in a former monastery where a number of artists have set up shop. The crisis has hit Ireland hard over the last few years, but it has some advantages too. “Thanks to the crisis there are a lot of empty buildings, so artists can rent studios at reasonable prices,” points out Christina Kennedy, a curator at the Irish Museum of Modern Art. Kennedy selected twenty leading artists for the contemporary side of the Bozar exhibition. Phelan is one of those chosen. In his studio stands a bust in papier-mâché, which is part of his installation for Bozar. It depicts five characters from Irish history; their heads rest on shelves that are surrounded by fake trees. We’re pretty far removed from Bacon.

Sheep
“It’s not that these artists have been directly influenced by Bacon,” clarifies Dawson. “But some of them work on similar issues.” The whole ensemble forms a colourful gathering that is quite diverse. “They don’t see themselves as typically Irish,” Kennedy adds. “The subjects they tackle are global. Sometimes the context is local, but it is about universal themes. And that is especially true of Willie Doherty.” Doherty is one of the most important and exciting contemporary Irish artists. At the last Documenta he presented a memorable film about a dilapidated house. In his films and videos he addresses themes such as repressed violence and memory.

(Growing Up In Public © Richard Mosse)

Richard Mosse, who is representing Ireland at the Venice Biennial this year, travelled to Congo with a special infrared camera that is used for military purposes. He will be showing a series of powerful photos bathed in shades of pink and purple. The Northern Ireland issue often comes up too, for example in the work of the photographer Paul Seawright. For Orla Barry, who lived in Belgium for a while, the Bozar exhibition is a kind of homecoming. Her work was on show here in 2003 at the Young Belgian Painters Award exhibition. Among other things, Barry works on issues relating to language. At the exhibition’s opening she will present a performance, Mountain, into which she has incorporated poems, songs, and speeches. Her props will stay behind in the exhibition as an installation. Some of them are made of wool from the sheep she raises herself. Rather Irish, that!

Changing States: Contemporary Irish Art & Francis Bacon’s Studio • 28/2 > 19/5, di/ma/Tu > zo/di/Su 10 > 18.00 (do/je/Th > 21.00), Paleis voor Schone Kunsten/Palais des Beaux-Arts, rue Ravensteinstraat 23, Brussel/Bruxelles, 02-507.82.00, info@bozar.be, www.bozar.be