Francis Bacon and the Existential Condition in Contemporary Art

At the Centro di Cultura Contemporanea Strozzina, a free exchange between the Irish painter and five of today's artists creates a dialogue between people who share an ability to engage the public in an existential reflection on contemporary life.

In The Theater and its Double, Antonin Artaud spoke of the anguish spectators should feel when leaving the theatre, shaken and overwhelmed by the inner dynamism played out before their very eyes and that spectators should know in advance they were embarking on an experience that would not only affect their minds but their senses and flesh too. The mind, the senses and the flesh are central to the Francis Bacon and the Existential Condition in Contemporary Art exhibition, a free exchange between the Irish artist — who was born in Dublin in 1909 and died in Madrid in 1992 — and five of today's artists: Nathalie Djurberg (1978) from Sweden, Adrian Ghenie (1977) from Romania, Arcangelo Sassolino (1967) from Italy, Chiharu Shiota (1972) from Japan and Annegret Soltau (1946) from Germany.

Co-curated by Franziska Nori and Barbara Dawson, director of Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane — which has displayed Bacon's perfectly reconstructed studio since 1998 — the exhibition seeks to create a dialogue between very different people who share an ability to engage the public in an existential reflection on contemporary life, as Nori explains in the catalogue.

The transfiguration of matter is core to the exhibition route, which revolves around iconographic material from Bacon's studio. There are photographic portraits of him and his friends, pictures from books and magazines, reproductions of works by Michelangelo and Velásquez, prints that tormented the artist as he composed the protagonists of his paintings, slashing and soiling them with colours and annotations, as if they were preliminary studies.

Top and above: one of the rooms dedicated to Nathalie Djurberg. Photo by Martino Margheri. Courtesy of CCC Strozzina, Firenze

The exhibition at the Centro di Cultura Contemporanea Strozzina in Florence takes shape by focusing on a number of Bacon's works — a few unfinished ones being shown outside Ireland for the first time are of special interest — interspersed with brief but intense monographic presentations by the five contemporary artists.

Francis Bacon, <em>Untitled (Three Figures)</em>, c. 1981. Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane, Dublin (reg. 1982). © 2012 Heirs of Francis Bacon. All right reserved SIAE, Rome and DACS, London — Francis Bacon, *Untitled (Three Figures)*, c. 1981. Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane, Dublin (reg. 1982). © 2012 Heirs of Francis Bacon. All right reserved SIAE, Rome and DACS, London

Nathalie Djurberg's installations and videos, created for her 2008 solo exhibition at the Fondazione Prada, suck visitors into a world of falsely friendly plasticine where the bodies of her figures, crushed by existential torment, begin to fall apart, decompose and change tragically.

Chiharu Shiota has created dense weaves that trap some old unused Palazzo Strozzi doors, making them inaccessible. The artist spent entire days here, interweaving black wool that gradually expanded, to almost completely fill the space. Those entering can feel the reverberations of the creative energy unleashed by Shiota over the days of the direct exchange between her body and the surrounding space.

The transfiguration of matter is core to the exhibition route, which revolves around iconographic material from Bacon's studio

One of the rooms dedicated to Francis Bacon. Photo by Martino Margheri. Courtesy of CCC Strozzina, Firenze

Lastly we have a "machine", built by Arcangelo Sassolino with industrial materials, in which two pistons pull a rope tied to two wooden beams at opposite ends of the room. In this case, it is the architectural corpus that is put to the test, as too the materials employed almost to breaking point, with the intention of "triggering in users a psychophysical sense of alarm, transience and tension." (according to Sassolino's interview with Pericle Guaglianone, in Exibart, 19 May 2006).

Installation by Arcangelo Sassolino. Photo by Martino Margheri. Courtesy of CCC Strozzina, Firenze

The exhibition catalogue, published by Hatje Cantz, is an excellent in-depth examination of the themes addressed with essays by the two co-curators, by Martin Harrison, a leading scholar on Bacon's work who focuses here on the artist's visual archives, and by Michela Marzano, professor of Moral philosophy at Paris Descartes University, who speaks of the "importance assumed by a philosophy of the body capable of interpreting contemporary reality and questioning oneself on the meaning of the physical existence of human beings." Emilia Giorgi

Installation by Chiharu Shiota. Photo by Martino Margheri. Courtesy of CCC Strozzina, Firenze

Room dedicated to Adrian Ghenie. Photo by Martino Margheri. Courtesy of CCC Strozzina, Firenze

Room dedicated to Annegret Soltau. Photo by Martino Margheri. Courtesy of CCC Strozzina, Firenze

Room dedicated Francis Bacon's iconographic archive. Photo by Martino Margheri. Courtesy of CCC Strozzina, Firenze

Francis Bacon and the Existential Condition in Contemporary Art

At the Centro di Cultura Contemporanea Strozzina, a free exchange between the Irish painter and five of today's artists creates a dialogue between people who share an ability to engage the public in an existential reflection on contemporary life.

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