Pink and Francis Bacon-Life Imitates Art

I am first and foremost a fan of looking, a fan of art, a life long student of visual expression and insatiably curious about how people see. Which brings me to an intriguing inversion of experience in my daily life. There have been many times in the last ten years that life has reminded me of art rather than the other way around. Such is my encyclopedic retention of visual art experience that often my primary source material for recognition of a world around me has been interpretive and not factual. Thus Life imitates Art.

Driving down Fairfax on one of these crystal clear LA days I stopped at an intersection only to look up at a billboard for Pink’s new album or tour. I’m a fan. She’s an intrinsically good pop music artist. But Whoa! The shape of that mouth, a scream or high note, sent me immediately to Francis Bacon.
Here then three examples of Francis Bacon portraits, each of which exude more terror than sustained crescendo.

Francis Bacon 1909-1992
Left: Study for a portrait, 1952
Tate, London
Center: Study after Veláquez’s Portrait of Pope Innocent X (1953)
Right: Three Studies of George Dyer'(detail)| Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, Denmark

Life continues to imitate Art.

-Mario M. Muller, Los Angeles, June 5th, 2014