Junk for Code

overlapping signifiers

Given that all the bombs, bodies and deaths associated with the "war on terrorism" a part of our everyday world, the work of Francis Bacon appears to be of its time, does it not?

Francis Bacon, Painting,1946

'Painting' is a complex image. The description provided is this:

"The scene is an old fashioned butcher's shop with ceramic festoons on the walls and, looming up in the background, a carcass....which is also a headless Crucifixion. In front of this, under an umbrella, is a figure which seems to be that of a politician (or even a Pope) addressing a battery of microphones; on either side of the foreground is a side of meat attached to a tubular structure evocative of gymnastic apparatus."

I reckon we can further than this description in terms of what it means for us today living in a war zone.

I re-interpret the image in terms of being reminded of the standard or routinised mass media image of politicians standing in front of presidential lectures delivering a set speech to the media about how well the war is going. I see the carcasses of the dead bodies hanging behind them as grim reminders of the success.

Yeah, it's crude to the point of vulgarity. But we are talking about raw experience here. What I should say is that this kind of baconian imagery helps us deal with the problem of experience we are living.

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at July 19, 2005 03:39 PM | TrackBack