Daily Archives: June 15, 2021

Francis Bacon, 1984. (Photo by Ulf Andersen / Getty Images)

In August of 1998, a team of curators, conservators, and archaeologists arrived at 7 Reece Mews, a small flat in Londons South Kensington neighborhood, to start work on the month-long task of transporting its contents to the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin. There, over the next five years, the team labored to painstakingly reconstruct the flat, which for some 30 years had served as the home and studio of Francis Bacon. The artist had moved to Reece Mews in the fall of 1961 and lived there until his death, in 1992, of a heart attack while on a trip to Madrid. The studio re-creation opened at the Hugh Lane in 2001 with some 7,500 pieces of materialslashed canvases, crumpled photographs, pages ripped from medical textbooks, drawings, and hand-scrawled notesnow available for consumption by a public hungry for insight into Bacons life and artistic process.BOOKS IN REVIEW

In the three decades since his death, that appetite seems not to have waned but waxed, as indicated by the staggering amount of material now devoted to Bacon: centenary retrospectives at the Tate and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a five-volume catalogue raisonn, and various biographic monographs whose titles (The Gilded Gutter Life of Francis Bacon; Anatomy of an Enigma) point to his canonization in the public eye as the enfant terrible of 20th-century art.

With Revelations, the latest addition to this litany of biographies, Annalyn Swan and Mark Stevens (who previously collaborated on a lengthy biography of Willem de Kooning) enter the fray, offering the most comprehensive study of one of the leading figures of modernism, someone whose paradoxical pop gravitas places him with the likes of Beckett, Camus, and Sartre. In some 800 pages of text and footnotes, the authorsaided by the artists estatedetail the trajectory of Bacons career with archaeological precision, excavating public and private records to unearth how the openly homosexual painter, preternaturally attuned to the social stage, crafted a rebellious public persona characterized by excesses of sex and violence, drink and drugs. As Swan and Stevens tell it, the ultimate secret of Bacons life was an intractable contradiction: his desperate wish to partake in the ordinary joys and solace denied him as [a sickly] child and young man, and his fear of anything that would shatter his glamorous veneer and make him appear commonplace, vulnerable, or pathetic.

Neither hagiographic nor sordid, Revelations is divided into three sections detailing Bacons youth and early success and failures, his breakthrough in the mid-1940s, and his final decades in London. The authors are adept at contextualizing Bacons artistic development within the story of his romances and exploits and go to great lengths to correct the record, dispelling errant mythologies (often propagated by Bacon himself) that lean too heavily on assertions of natural genius, such as Bacons claim that he rarely made preparatory drawings. Where the last major biography, Michael Peppiatts Anatomy of an Enigmawhich drew from the authors confidential conversations with Bacon over the course of several yearsindulges the mythography of its subject, conceding to Bacons many quips, his claim of being the most artificial person there is, to justify his use of cosmetics, Swan and Stevens are far more restrained, if also excessively discursive, preferring to refract Bacon through the company he kept, studies of his family, and analyses of his art. Their comprehensiveness is particularly instructive when illuminating his years as a commercial furniture and rug designer in the 1930s, a facet of his career that Bacon rarely discussed in public, lest it detract from his reputation as a painter of the macabrea reputation he achieved only in midlife with his 1945 triptych, Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion. That painting marked, according to John Russell, a transition in English art, shocking a society numbed from the long years of World War II. And it also marked a transition for Bacon, who would insist that he began as a painter with this work, a claim that drives Swan and Stevenss investigation into the contours of his artistic persona.

The appeal of an artist biography typically lies in its discussion of creative genius, as well as the hindrances and defeatsor the comfortsthat led to artistic success. Bacon was in no shortage of the elite privilege, particularly in his early years. Born in 1909 to an aristocratic Anglo-Irish family, he was the second of four children, his father a British major who had served in Burma and later trained horses and his mother the heiress to a steel fortune. Asthmatic from a young age, Bacon suffered from an inability to participate in the masculinist traditions of hunting and riding, causing his fatherto whom Bacon claimed to be sexually attractedto regard his son as sexually effete and weak. Both his asthma and his early sexual awakening would provide fodder for Bacons early self-mythologizing. He often spoke of an experience as a child, struggling to breathe and nearly fainting while locked in a dark closet by the family maid, who purportedly kept him hidden away so she could cavort with a secret boyfriend; he also claimed to have had his first sexual encounters with his fathers horse grooms, who purportedly whipped him in the family stables.

While the veracity of these claims remains uncertain, what is true is that Bacon left his family home in the English countryside at 16, supported by a weekly allowance from his mother. In the spring of 1927, he moved briefly to Berlin, where he imbibed the libertine atmosphere of Weimar, and then headed to Paris, where he first saw the works of Picasso in person and fell in with a crowd of artists and designers who inspired him to pursue a career in design. He returned to London in 1928, and it was at this time that he began his relationship with Eric Allden, the first of several powerful older men who provided him not only with sex and companionship but also financial support, as he pursued his ambition of becoming a furniture and rug designer, freelancing for prominent designers and debuting in popular magazines. Men like Allden, and later the well-connected Tory politician Eric Hall, would be among the many sponsors, financial and emotional, that Bacon relied on throughout his life as he stubbornly attempted to develop his own career outside the family name; others included his childhood nanny, who accompanied him for nearly 40 years, and later the gallerists who bailed him out when his gambling debts and profligate spending rendered him temporarily destitute.

A common feature of the artist biography is the allusion to a transformative moment, the pivot point at which the subject recognizes their artistic potential. Swan and Stevens do not stray from this convention: For Bacon, as intimated in this biography as well as the many interviews he gave during his lifetime, this moment came in 1931, when he saw Thirty Years of Picasso, an exhibition held at Alex Reid and Lefevre Gallery in London, and committed himself to studying art. He went back to Paris for two years and took painting lessons from the modernist Roy de Maistre; returning to London in 1933, he exhibited at successively more prominent galleries with the support of his many confidants and connections and was recognizedthough often with mixed reviewsin the British press. (John Berger, in a scathing 1952 review in The New Statesman and Nation, remarked that Bacon was not an important painter.)

Bacons early paintings were riffs on the surrealist mode that had taken Europe by storm in the early 1930s, and for the next several years, he struggled to find a style that would set him apart and that he could claim as his own. By 1937, he stopped exhibiting entirely, a personal defeat that was eclipsed by the arrival of the Second World War in England. When London was bombed by the Germans in 1940, Bacon fled to the countryside to escape the dust that now filled the air. For two years, he worked there in solitude, using as source material newspaper photos of Nazi soldiers and the wreckage of war. The authors of Revelations are at their best when reflecting, as Bacon did, on these moments of internal reckonings, the junctures at which artistic development meets introspection.

After these quiet but crucial years, the figure that begins to emerge is not only the recognized painter of crucifixions and cadavers but the Bacon of popular lore, who prowled the clubs and bars of Soho, gambled away his earnings in Monte Carlo, and had long, torrid, sadomasochistic affairs with a succession of loversfirst with former fighter pilot Peter Lacy and later with George Dyer, the East End hustler who did not, in fact, crash through the Reece Mews skylight (as Bacon claimed) but who met him in a bar. With Lacy, Bacon spent time in Tangier, borrowing advances from gallerists to live in North Africa, where he fell in with American expats like Paul and Jane Bowles and William Burroughs.

But to understand Bacons legacy as an artistnot the one marked by astronomical auction prices but by his assault on the modernist sensibility and his dogged determination to succeed at whatever costthe authors direct readers to Three Studies at the Base of a Crucifixion, the triptych that debuted at Londons Lefevre Gallery in April of 1945, near the end of World War II, to what Swan and Stevens portray as a minor moral and critical uproar. Across its three panels, Bacon depicted the Three Furies from Aeschyluss Oresteia, mythological creatures of vengeance painted with sharp, attenuated necks and engorged bodies against a blood-orange backdrop, a color to shock wan, gray, war-weary London, where for years there had not been any intense light apart from the bomb flashes and subsequent fires.

The true shock of Three Studies, however, was not the sacrilegious subject matter or its garish composition, but rather its moral ambiguity. In refusing to distinguish between good and evil within his painting, Bacon presented a quandary for critics who sought a neat paradigm in the context of the war against German fascism. Nobody wanted to believe that there was in human nature an element that was irreducibly evil, wrote the critic John Russell, and yet Three Studies asserted this condition as primeval fact in a confrontation too beguiling to ignore. That in subsequent decades Bacon would, in his own revisionist approach, use this very painting to mark his beginning as an artista decision that Swan and Stevens present as convincing evidence of his shrewd approach to fashioning his legacy (as well as, frankly, his good taste)justifies the authors somewhat outsize focus on the painting in this biography, though one wishes there were richer descriptions of other notable works.

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Revelations lingers on the period between the mid-1940s and the early 70s when Bacon ascended to celebrity, detailing the elite social milieu that swirled around him, which included designer Isabel Rawsthorne, writer Sonia Orwell, and painter Lucian Freud. The authors provide many sketches of the coterie of sponsors, confidants, lovers, and enemies that populated Bacons life, but the effect is one that occludes the subject of their study, as the presence of so many supporting characters thrusts Bacon himself into the background. As rife as they are with tales of excess, these years are also marked by moments of tragic symmetry: Lacy died the night of Bacons first retrospective at the Tate in 1962, George Dyer two days before his 1971 retrospective at the Pompidou. In the following two decades, Bacon garnered international acclaim and embarked on long-term, obsessive relationships with younger lovers, including John Edwards, to whom he bequeathed his estate, and Jos Capelo, the man who would be with Bacon in his last moments in Madrid. Throughout the 1970s and 80s, Bacon maintained his reputation for grandiosity and hedonism by swanning around in a Bentley and jet-setting through Europe and the United States, flush with cash from his sales with Marlborough Gallery.

Critics have argued that it was during this period that Bacons paintings became branded, his once-eviscerating symbolism now rote, his celebrity obscuring his talents. This is the double-edged sword of biography, which, like the tortured visages Bacon wrought in his lifetime, may distort as much as it clarifies. In attending to the many details and specifics of Bacons life as well as his legacy, Revelations comprises a more satisfying portrait of the artist.

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Behind the Hedonist Persona of Francis Bacon - The Nation

Compared with the clear-cut noble heroes ofthe DC universe, Harley Quinn gets away with metaphorical (and sometimes real) murder. Being a member of the Suicide Squad comes with a whole set of shady perks the kind of morally dark, R-rated hijinks that Bruce Wayne, one of DCs ultimate dyed-in-the-wool do-gooders, knows to givea wide berth.

Or does he? Now that DC has branched out with more mature takes on superhero tales with HBO-appropriate shows like the animated Harley Quinn series, the creative room to push the boundaries has gotten a lot bigger ...if not on the big screen, then at least in the more experimental reaches of the DC hero pantheon. Voiced by Kaley Cuoco, the toon version of Harley hangs tight (and sometimes even surpasses) her comics and movie counterparts when it comes to frequent swearing, cavorting with the wrong crowd, and cracking random skulls.

But thats Harley. Surely Batman himself wouldnt be tied into the more risqu ...would he? Well, the creative minds behind the Harley Quinn series recently shared with Variety that they tried to make it happen, before the higher-ups at DC descended with a mandate to have Bruce Wayne grappling-hook his way out of what couldve been truly risqu territory.

Its incredibly gratifying and free to be using characters that are considered villains because you just have so much more leeway, said Justin Halpern, one of Harley Quinns co-creators and executive producers, before delving into a tawdry unmade scene one that wouldve taken Batman way outside his typical zone.

A perfect example of that is in this third season of Harley [when] we had a moment where Batman was going down on Catwoman. And DC was like, You cant do that. You absolutely cannot do that. Theyre like, Heroes dont do that. So, we said, Are you saying heroes are just selfish lovers? They were like, No, its that we sell consumer toys for heroes. Its hard to sell a toy if Batman is also going down on someone.

Darkness in all its forms surrounds the Caped Crusader: Its part of his long-running mystique. And theres no question that Bruce has had his share of chances, over the decades, to indulge in some decidedly non-heroic hedonism. Christopher Nolan teased that very idea in Batman Begins, when Bruce (Christian Bale) shows up at his own birthday party looking like a debauched playboy, swilling wine and frolicking with supermodels (though he ended up having a truly heroic reason). But DCs point seems to be that, even with all his wealth and worldly connections,Batman may have seen it all,butlike a stoic superhero, he probably doesnt do it all. At least not as far as they want to confirm on-screen.

Harley, on the other hand, pretty much gets to do whatever she likes and as the first two seasons of the animated series have shown, her appetite for mayhem and hedonism is more than big enough to carry the DC universe on its back. DC hasnt yet revealed a premiere date for Season 3 of Harley Quinn, but its expected to arrive with 10 new episodes sometime later this year (or early 2022) onHBO Max.

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Creators of animated Harley Quinn series reveal the Batman scene so risqu, DC made them cut it - SYFY WIRE

[SPOILERS] On Friday, June 11, Netflix dropped Part 2 of Lupin, the French thriller TV series based on the Arsne Lupin novels by Maurice LeBlanc. Part 1, which was released on January 8 of this year, overnight became Netflixs most-watched non-English-language TV show with 76 million viewers in the first month, and the first French show to break Netflixs U.S. Top Ten ranking. The reasons for its success are numerous, including a star in the form of the inimitable Omary Sy (of Les Intouchables fame), a flashy Parisian backdrop, and source material that sits at the heart of French literature (though it may be new to many Americans watching).

The first season follows the journey of Assane Diop, played by Omar Sy, as he attempts to avenge the death of his father Babakar at the hands of Hubert Pellegrini, one of the richest men in France. Diop has spent his entire life styling himself after the character Arsne Lupin, a gentleman burglar and master of disguise, and each episode features an assortment of capers and costumes borrowed from LeBlanc and updated for the times (although, as in many crime thrillers, some of the technology used veers on the side of futuristic).

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Whereas Part 1 was lauded for showing some of the real Paris, and included scenes in suburban HLMs or state prisons, Part 2 is all glitz and glamor: swanky restaurants, luxury Parisian homes, and a final episode set entirely at a symphony charity fundraiser.

Much of the show is designed to call attention to wealth disparities in present day France and, by extension, the world. Assane is the son of a poor Senegalese immigrant, who was framed for the theft of a famous necklace so that his already-wealthy employer, Pellegrini, could claim the insurance money.

Pellegrini is a Villain with a capital V, a cartoonish rendering of old money white male privilege, the kind of man who pockets donations from his own charity foundation and keeps an assassin on payroll. And the farther you get into the show, the worse he gets. While this is clearly done to make the thieving, adulterous, generally manipulative Assane look like a hero in comparison, at times Pellegrinis evilness is so over-the-top it gets in its own way.

Pellegrinis daughter, Juliette, is a more effective tool for showcasing effortless entitlement. In one episode, Juliette complains to Assane, her old flame, that she has too much money but that her life has become boring, lacking adrenaline. She goads him into playing the bad boy of his youth, dining and dashing and then running off on a stolen vespa. Its later revealed that Assane planned the whole thing, paying the restaurant and the scooters owner to fabricate an evening of infantile hedonism. Juliettes true stripes are shown: she thinks nothing of being bad with Assane no matter who gets shorted, because she knows that she can always tell herself it was his influence, and go home to her safe, privileged world.

We get a lot more of Assanes backstory in Part 2, including an incident in which a shopkeeper refuses to rent a violin to Assanes future wife, Claire, because he doesnt trust the young black boy she keeps company with. Its the first time he asks himself, What would Arsne Lupin do? Steal the violin, of course, in an act of revenge against the racist shop owner. Though he gets caught, the rush of the game sticks with him, setting him on a path towards ever-bigger heists.

Though Omar Sy manages to pull off a massive charm offensive in these five new episodes, there seems to be a huge effort made to make the show more serious than it needs to be. Vast conspiracies, bloated bad guys, and threats of child murder detract somewhat from the shows mischievous, lighthearted core. Many of the characters also come off as particularly one-note: Pellegrini, as previously mentioned; Assanes ex-wife Claire, who too-often wears the angry divorce hat; Belkacem, who too-often wears the angry cop lady hat; Raoul, whose only personality traits are being obsessed with Lupin and being obsessed with his dad; or Lonard, the sociopathic assassin who seems to beg for some kind of backstory.

That being said, the show is impossible to stop watching once youve begun. Its shiny and exciting, and occasionally offers some purely marvelous moments, such as Assane taking a joyride on the Seine in a stolen boat while Jacques Dutroncs Gentleman Cambrioleur plays in the background. Its already been confirmed for a Part 3, so heres hoping the Lupin team can get their act together and smooth out the rough edges. Because the potential, like Lupin himself, seems to be without limit.

Go here to read the rest:

'Lupin' Part 2 is Glamorous and Addictive, if a Little on the Nose - Frenchly

The Sherlocks will headline The Black Prince in Northampton later this year as part of a 15-date UK tour.

In recent years, the Sheffield quartet have become one of the most exciting live bands on the indie circuit, selling out tours across the UK and Europe and opening for the likes of Liam Gallagher, Kings Of Leon, Kaiser Chiefs and The Libertines.

Earlier this year, they released End Of The Earth, their first new music since their 2019 sophomore album Under Your Sky.

The LP reached number 20 in the Official UK Charts while single NYC (Sing It Loud) which was released on the same day, topped the Official Vinyl Charts.

The album followed their 2017 debut Live For The Moment which established them as key contenders in a new wave of British bands keeping alt-rock and indie vital for a new generation of fans.

If Live For The Moment was an insight into the hedonism and heartbreak of youth, its successor Under Your Sky saw frontman Kiaran Crook writing songs which bridged the exuberance of youth with the reflection and maturity of young adulthood.

The band is currently working on their third album.

The Sherlocks headline the Abington Square venue on Thursday, October 7. Support acts are TBC.

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Indie quartet The Sherlocks announce Northampton gig at Black Prince - Northampton Chronicle and Echo

She's been recognised for her "services to music"

Skunk Anansie singer and Absolute Radio presenter Skin has been awarded an OBE (The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) in the Queens 2021 Birthday Honours list.

First established by King George V in 1917, OBEs reward contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service.

Honoured under her real name of Deborah Ann Dyer, singer, songwriter, author, DJ, model and radio presenter Skin has been recognised for her services to music.

Celebrating the news, Skin shared a photo of herself on Instagram and wrote: The face you make when you get an OBE!!

Not bad for a skinny black girl from Brixton who fell in love with Rock & Roll!! But seriously, this is a lovely thing to happen to me and Im quite chuffed, gonna take a step back and suck it in.

53-year-old Skin co-founded Skunk Anansie in 1994 alongside bassist Richard "Cass" Lewis and guitarist Martin "Ace" Kent and the bands first two studio albums 1995s Paranoid & Sunburnt and 1996s Stoosh - went Platinum in the UK.

Skunk Anansie also scored a string of hit singles in the late 90s including Weak, Hedonism (Just Because You Feel Good), Brazen (Weep) and Charlie Big Potato, and they were the last band of the 20th Century to headline The Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury when they topped the bill on Sunday 27th June 1999.

Seven years after their split, Skunk Anansie reformed in 2008 and they have released three further studio albums to date Wonderlustre (2010), Black Traffic (2012) and Anarchytecture (2016).

Last year, Skin released her acclaimed autobiography It Takes Blood And Guts and she was unveiled as The Duck on the first series of TV show The Masked Singer.

In October 2020, Skin hosted a new 10-part series on Absolute Radio called The Skin Show, and it returned for a second season in early 2021.

Absolute Radios Skin Tings podcast, which launched this spring, features Skin chatting to her musical heroes and some of the most exciting up and coming talent.

Guests have included Debbie Harry, Billy Corgan, Shirley Manson, Arlo Parks, Paul Weller, Sam Bettens, Joan Armatrading, Living Colour and the legendary Annie Lennox.

Everyone at Absolute Radio congratulates Skin on her incredible achievement!

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Edward Louis Severson III (Eddie Vedder)

Farrokh Bulsara (Freddie Mercury)

Michael Peter Balzary (Flea)

Perry Bernstein (Perry Farrell)

Frank Ferrano (Nikki Sixx)

Frank Edwin Wright III (Tr Cool)

Courtney Michelle Harrison (Courtney Love)

Georg Albert Ruthenberg (Pat Smear)

Chaim Klein Witz (Gene Simmons)

James Newell Osterberg, JR. (Iggy Pop)

Vincent Damon Furnier (Alice Cooper)

Michael Ryan Pritchard (Mike Dirnt)

Ronald James Padavona (Ronnie James Dio)

Bree Joanna Alice Robinson (Brody Dalle)

Chad Robert Turton (Chad Kroeger)

Nicholas Jones (Nicky Wire)

Amy Lynn Hartzler (Amy Lee)

William Perks (Bill Wyman)

Jeffrey Isbell (Izzy Stradlin)

Stanley Eisen (Paul Stanley)

Henry Garfield (Henry Rollins)

Richard Harrison (Rick Parfitt)

Vincent Neil Wharton (Vince Neil)

Stevland Hardaway Morris (Stevie Wonder)

Michael McKagan (Duff McKagan)

John Baldwin (John Paul Jones)

Keith Palmer (Maxim Reality)

Eric Patrick Clapp (Eric Clapton)

Susan Janet Ballion (Siouxsie Sioux)

David Robert Hayward Stenton Jones (David Bowie)

Richard Wayne Penniman (Little Richard)

John Simon Ritchie (Sid Vicious)

Paul Daniel Frehley (Ace Frehley)

John Graham Mellor (Joe Strummer)

David Howell Evans (The Edge)

Marvin Lee Aday (Meatloaf)

Steven Victor Tallarico (Steven Tyler)

John Michael Osbourne (Ozzy Osbourne)

John Francis Bongiovi (Jon Bon Jovi)

John Anthony Gillis (Jack White)

Reginald Kenneth Dwight (Elton John)

Robert Allen Zimmerman (Bob Dylan)

Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor (Lorde)

Quentin Leo Cook (Fatboy Slim)

Jake Edwin Charles Kennedy (Jake Bugg)

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Skin awarded OBE in the Queen's 2021 Birthday Honours list - Free Radio