PICASSO – BACON. What It Feels Like to Be Human

What does it mean to be human? Pablo Picasso and Francis Bacon approached this question in radically different ways. Both rank among the most significant figurative painters of the twentieth century, and both fundamentally transformed the representation of the human body. Yet the worlds separating Picasso’s often graceful, almost dance-like figures from Bacon’s disturbing, dissolving bodies seem vast. What connects these two artists, and how deeply did Picasso’s work shape Bacon’s artistic vision?

The exhibition at the Albertina reveals a relationship that is less self-evident than it might first appear. At its heart is a Picasso who is often overshadowed in the public imagination by the exuberant, life-affirming painter of his later years: the surrealist Picasso of 1925 to 1930. During this period, Picasso began to fragment the human body and reassemble it into new configurations. For the young Francis Bacon, this work became a decisive source of inspiration. While Picasso reconstructed the body almost architecturally, Bacon allowed it to dissolve, distorting and transforming the human figure into an expression of existential upheaval.

Both artists sought a visual language capable of confronting the full complexity and contradictions of human existence. How can we represent the human being after the catastrophes of the twentieth century, after war, violence and the collapse of familiar certainties? Picasso and Bacon arrived at very different answers. Picasso’s figures can convey sensuality, desire and the joy of life, but also pain and destruction. In Bacon’s work, the body becomes a site of fear, guilt and psychological tension. His paintings leave us unsettled because they bring something into view that resists straightforward explanation.

Picasso’s influence on Bacon is evident not only in their fundamental approaches to the human body, but also in specific visual motifs. The exhibition reveals unexpected connections between individual works, between Picasso’s multifaceted portraits and Bacon’s series of paintings, between artistic appropriation and independent reinvention. Seen side by side, the works reveal how Bacon transformed Picasso’s innovations into a visual language entirely his own.

In the film, Ralph Gleis, Director General of the Albertina, explores the affinities and differences between these two artists. Following the traces of their artistic encounter, he reveals how their paintings give form to a question that extends far beyond their own time: What does it mean to be human?

https://www.albertina.at

Interviewee: Ralph Gleis
Artworks by: Ralph Gleis, Francis Bacon

Copyright info: The audio and video recording has been made with personal permission of the artist.
Licensing: 0
Language(s): German
Subtitles: English
Producer: KA21 GmbH / CastYourArt
Production crew: Wolfgang Haas, Helmut Feier, Michael Rottmann
Production country: Austria, Vienna