A central question to my practice at present is how to depict violence within my work. I don't just mean how to produce images of violence, that is easily done, but rather how to achieve an atmosphere of menace & violence within the work itself. I believe this is a question Francis Bacon struggled with throughout his career, and I can understand his difficulty. Unless I successfully mediate my own passion and anger into the subject matter, it risks becoming bland and mediocre. Although I am wary of the work of the Furturists, because of their connection to Fascism, their manifesto sums up much of my belief about violence and art
«[We
will] elevate all attempts at originality, however daring, however
violent…Make room for youth, for violence, for daring…Art, in fact, can
be nothing but violence, cruelty and injustice”, declared the Futurists
in their 1910 Founding Manifesto. - See more at:
http://interartive.org/2008/07/shock-violence-art/#sthash.DCEUkmzF.dpuf
Francis
Bacon, when interviewed by Francis Giacobetti, said the following about
violence, life and art, and I find his attitude to be inspiring and
informative. With so much death and violence happening all around us,
how is it possible for an artist who is concious of the world he lives
in to fail to mediate this into their work?
FB: Your painting is often described as violent…☛ “Francis Bacon: I painted to be loved” interview by Francis Giacobetti conducted on February 1992, published in The Art Newspaper, no. 137, June 2003, pp. 28-29. PDF.
My painting is not violent; it’s life that is violent. I have endured physical violence, I have even had my teeth broken. Sexuality, human emotion, everyday life, personal humiliation (you only have to watch television)―violence is part of human nature. Even within the most beautiful landscape, in trees, under the leaves the insects are eating each other; violence is part of life.
(The interview published in The Art Newspaper is an excerpt of a much longer interview Francis Bacon did with his friend Francis Giacobetti between September 1991 and ealry 1992. Another selection of excerpts were also published in The Independent – Saturday Magazine on June 14, 2003 under the title “The Last Interview” (PDF). For more information about this “last interview”, see after the following quotes. It’s also worth noting that the BBC also claims to have recorded Francis Bacon’s last interview, although it has nothing to do with the discussions Bacon had with his friend Giacobetti; see “‘I’ll go on until I drop’; Francis Bacon’s last interview” broadcast on August 17, 1991)
“Meat Triptych” by Francis Giacobetti, 1991, urane silver gelatin print, 60 x 40 cm each panel.
In the excerpts published by The Art Newspaper, Francis Bacon goes on to discuss flesh, meat and screaming:
FG: What does flesh represent to you?
Flesh and meat are life! If I paint red meat as I paint bodies it is just because I find it very beautiful. I don’t think anyone has ever really understood that. Ham, pigs, tongues, sides, of beef seen in the butcher’s window, all that death, I find it very beautiful. And it’s all for sale―how unbelievably surrealistic! [...]
FG: The scream?
We are born with a scream; we come into life with a scream, and maybe love is a mosquito net between the fear of living and the fear of death. That was one of my real obsessions. The men I painted were all in extreme situation, and the scream is a transcription of their pain.
Animals scream when they are frightened or in pain, so do children. But men are more discreet and more inhibited. They do not cry or scream except in situations of extreme pain. We come into this world with a scream and we often also die with a scream. Perhaps the scream is the most direct symbol of the human condition.
“Portrait in the Mirror” by Francis Giacobetti, 1991, silver gelatin print, 37 x 60 cm.
In the excerpts published by The Independent Magazine, one can find a similar observation:
FG: What is your vision of the world?In my opinion, Bacon was successful in his conveying violence in his works, because they also contain a sense of motion. Violence is not static. It requires an action, an aggression, in order to be effective. Therefore, if a painting is to carry within it a sense of the violent, it must also contain elements which give the viewer a feeling of this action. Bacon achieved this through his study of the photographic works of Eadweard Muybridge, and his destruction of the photographic media, in order to achieve a sense of deformation of the human body which presupposes a violent eruption acting upon the figure. I consider Bacon's work as having a unique quality in their expression of figurative motion and activity.
FB: Since the beginning of time, we have had countless examples of human violence even in our very civilised century. We have even created bombs capable of blowing up the planet a thousand times over. An artist instinctively takes all this into account. He can’t do otherwise. I am a painter of the 20th century: during my childhood I lived through the revolutionary Irish movement, Sinn Fein, and the wars, Hiroshima, Hitler, the death camps, and daily violence that I’ve experienced all my life. And after all that they want me to paint bunches of pink flowers…But that’s not my thing. The only things that interest me are people, their folly, their ways, their anguish, this unbelievable, purely accidental intelligence which has shattered the planet, and which maybe, one day, will destroy it. I am not a pessimist. My temperament is strangely optimistic. But I am lucid.,......
Violence in Performance Art
Contemporary performance art is full of examples of actual violence perptrated as art. Three examples which come to mind are Paul McCarthy's Rocky 1976, in which the artist, dressed in leather cap & black eye mask, grunts and groans as he beats himself almost unconcious with boxing gloves. You tube clip is below, [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_B-rtYsYVbw ].
Chris Burden's performances in the 1970's were also examples of a practice involving extreme bodily distress. His Five Day Locker Piece 1971 saw him confine himself inside a two-foot by two-foot locker locker for five days, with a tube suspended from above for water, and another below for body waste. In Shoot 1972 Burden had a friend shoot him in his upper left arm with a .22 rifle. [http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=389_1290648393]. In Trans-fixed 1974 Burden had himself crucified by the hands to the roof of a Volkswagen Beetle, which was then pushed into the LA traffic with the engine running at maximum revolutions.. He has also crawled naked across broken glass, and had himself electrocuted.
Chris Burden, Trans-Fixed, 1974
I hope that by using collage elements of machinery & other objects within my paintings,and abstracting the body to an abject distortion of barely recognisable parts, that I will create an atmosphere of violence within my works which will reflect the truth about our society, which is that, sadly, violence is an ever present, though carefully hidden, foundation of the world we live in today.
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