Science is an arsenal of logic, proofs, and answers that banishes all mystery, Gods, and monsters to the edge of existence where death waits by the river. Science is a saintly endeavor but can an animal eat an answer? No amount of answers can cure the struggle that life is and so it is the hunt, not the answer, that excites us. The idea of winning the struggle brings simple direction and enormous satisfaction, whereas for all their good press, answers bring a false sense of security and stagnation, not to mention the confusion of even bigger problems. Wrong answers are believed for hundreds of years. Others are misread. For instance, the Garden of Eden is true as a description of the end of the world not its creation. Eden is the earth’s real name and if we continue to dominate instead of adapt, we will be expelled from our Paradise. The gods and monsters draw near as fear descends.
Art although not scientific also seeks the truth. America (critic Greenberg) proclaimed Abstract Art as the new answer, where the purity of the flat surface is unblemished by image, perspective, or narration. But it is only through struggle that we really feel this purity. Not until Francis Bacon are we aware of the flat surface with such alarming intensity precisely because it conflicts so violently with a figure that moves in and out, from dark to light, from human to animal. Surrounded by a surface as perfect as a polished stone, the figure struggles, it looks cut open, eviscerated, leaking, smeared and splattered, its flesh twisting like a trapped snake. But the real horror is the beautiful empty surface…endless and immeasurable…like death. It’s this tension that makes our noses quiver and our tails tremble. While Pollack is forced to shit on the cement square of his canvas like a dog in the pound, Bacon struggles up a mountain that becomes a volcano only to find the fiery pit of hell in the icy purity of heaven.
I prefer myth to science because with a story, it’s always the struggle that counts –hero battles dragon to save damsel, or in the language of Alchemy, man struggles to unite with his more feminine self. Women were symbols until Lancelot ate Guinevere’s apple. Banished from the Eden of King Arthur’s Court, man trots off in the reptilian pursuit of sex, giving up his struggle to unite with or even to admit to a female side. Again the Gods and monsters move closer. The modern Dark Age descends. Movies appear, mocking mirages where the dragon is replaced by a car chase and the hero gets to fuck his symbol like some kind of trophy.
There is another struggle in Bacon’s work, the desire to paint what he adores, his male lover, which turns into self loathing, alienation, and a thing of such feeling, beauty and despair that it becomes uplifting. I do not feel sad when I look at a Bacon, I see hope. I see the Gods and Monsters and I let them come even closer because they are part of me in an empty universe and I need their company.
It’s infinity that I fear which is why science tries to measure everything.
Artillery Magazine Vol 3 no. 5 June 2009