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The Arts Intel Report

A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler
A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler

Bacon, Freud: La Condition Humana

Jan 21 – Feb 27, 2021
Calle de Orfila, 5, 28010 Madrid, Spain

Francis Bacon’s visceral imagery—his contorted and flayed bodies and faces—have become symbolic of nihilism and death. Lucian Freud’s frankly mortal visages are anything but welcoming. Often scowling, his subjects hold one’s gaze with cold power. Placing the pair side-by-side, this exhibition should test and taunt, provoke and silence. —E.C.

Francis Bacon, “Triptych,” 1983-4. The Estate of Francis Bacon.