London Calling, an exhibition

July 26 – November 13, 2016 Getty Center

Triptych August 1972, Francis Bacon, oil on three canvases, 1972

If you have ever had the opportunity to see the film, Fox and Friends by Rainer Werner Fassbinder http://www.allmovie.com/movie/v18377 you know what it is like to feel the visceral repugnancy of slaughtered meat, but we watch between our fingers. Francis Bacon’s Triptych August 1972 has the same distancing allure as Fox and Friends. Triptych August 1972 is included in the series of “Black Triptychs” that Bacon painted during the early 1970’s in memory of his lover and model George Dyer. Garish pinks and mauves set against the forced perspective of cool grey’s and black symmetry create an atmosphere of foreboding and decay. Life and near death pause, succumb and disintegrate into the ether of unease.