Arthur Bacon's Photography

The eclecticism of Arthur Bacon’s work is striking. In viewing his latest show at the Bonnafont Gallery, one is presented with an impressive variety of subject matter. The fact that each series is approached in a unique way, whether photographic or sculptural, reveals Mr. Bacon’s belief in the close relationship between meaning and material execution. While he allows the Homeless Sites to stand scrutiny simply tacked to the wall with push-pins, he nonetheless elegantly frames his Heidegger prints, and carefully shrink-wraps his Ansel Adams.

Mr. Bacon clearly shows a serious interest in the exploration of photography as an Art medium, and in engaging the world which surrounds him. He gracefully avoids the trap of political sermonizing while using current history as subject matter. The quietness of the Homeless Sites and the stark elegance of the Gloves invite meditation rather than yelling out its author’s intentions. Here is where Mr. Bacon's maturity becomes most evident. So much of contemporary Art has become yelling and noise; much of it directed toward an egocentric and youthful audience; it is a breath of fresh air to contemplate complex work which invites engagement at different levels. Mr. Bacon’s social concerns lend the extra dimension to an otherwise magnificent display of material dexterity in photography. The Gloves are perhaps his most remarkable group in this area: gloves that have been ground into the earth appear at first to be an abstract play of textures and shapes, sometimes to the point of being violently mangled beyond recognition. In these images, the distinction between object and background ceases to exist, and we see Mr. Bacon using photography to reflect on concerns that have been appropriated by modern painting.

Beyond abstraction, the Gloves also evoke the physical and spiritual story of the workers who once wore them, and allude to the abuse they may have endured, without hindering the viewer’s engagement in the aesthetic aspects of the work. The eye continues to search in each detail and shift of tone for clues of what is being depicted, both because the formal qualities demand it, and because the clues seem more relevant and important in the social context in which they are set. Each reinforces the other. Even in the Heidegger series, where actual text is involved and commands as much attention as the images it is printed over, the work allows for a scrutiny that defies immediate judgement. The "realness" of the documentary photographs invites the viewer to linger over the visual details of the material poverty on display, and to wonder at the specificity of it, just as one lingers over the complex philosophic passages which are quoted.

As far as photographic technique is concerned, the work on view is a fine example of its proper use: mastery that does not fall into unnecessary conventions. The Asphalt series displays blacks and whites in stunningly rich harmonies. They appear to be there for the sake of pure virtuosity, yet the recognition of crushed pebbles and silky tar in conjunction with the deep black/white contrast allow a certain visceral reaction tied to the openness of western roads, and at times even accentuating a potential violence. The otherwise inconsequential daily encounter we have with cracked and repaired asphalt has been reframed poetically in large swaths of black Kline-like brushstrokes. The beauty of the images in Asphalt is a studied effect which cannot come unnoticed when seen in contrast to the subtler grays in Homeless Sites. The sleeping sites of homeless people in Golden Gate Park are turned lyrical by the grayness of the images: it accentuates the sadness of the curved branches, the trash left behind, the grass that is now matted down. They are harder to look at, more oppressive and mysterious. A careful eye is moderating the pitch and tempo of each image in a way that reminds us that technique is subordinate to expression.

This artistic decision-making is most evident when he departs the furthest from traditional photography to give us sculptural works like Ten Undeveloped Prints of New York City and Wrapped Ansel. The carefulness with which he has framed his Agfa Paper box in Ten Undeveloped Prints shows ambivalence towards the photographic process and the relationship between idea and product. The off-hand message in the Post-It note could be interpreted as instructions of what the viewer should imagine, as it points to an invisible series of prints that have little relation with what is on view. Mr. Bacon uses the daily materials of his own artistic endeavors to give us a playful take on conceptualism. This may also be the case in Wrapped Ansel, where he takes an image by the most famous of photographers, and "packages" it for consumption, a process that only helps to obscure the image. Where Mr. Bacon comes up short is in the singularity of these pieces. He piques our interest with work that may require a broader context to be better understood and enjoyed. On the other hand, it is particularly refreshing to see him constantly questioning his own methods of operation, so that we are just as surprised as he is with each group of images or objects.

The first body of work presented in this exhibit is his Washed Out Emulsion series: they are like no other photographs we have seen before. Well, that might be because they are not quite photographs, being that each is unique and impossible to reproduce, such as traditional photographs are; these images perhaps share as much with drawing as they do with photography. Knowing the process by which they are produced, they can be likened to Rauschenberg’s Erased de Kooning, as they are created by a destructive (erasing) process that in fact allows a new image to surface: often-times an abstraction that still bears traces of the original.

Mr. Bacon’s flirtations with abstraction are notable in contrast to the last show at San Francisco’s Bonnafont Gallery, in 1999. That exhibit featured his Border photographs (a beautifully viewed series documenting the life around and on the US/Mexico border), and New York City (a series about the frenetic energy unique to New York). Of particular note was the surprising approach Mr. Bacon took to create the New York images. This work shows the germination of an idea which we see coming to fruition four years later in the current exhibit. No longer straight black and white images, each photograph in New York is presented as a complex web of erotic/porn pictures (the advertising on the streets mimics the porn, and vice versa) and the ordinary street life of downtown Manhattan.

While Mr. Bacon seems to have always had a variety of artistic concerns, he is finally embracing a complete freedom of execution which he so clearly displays in this year’s show at the Bonnafont Gallery. The surprising eclecticism on view is perhaps an explosion caused by the meeting of his love of photography, his engagement in the world, his understanding of Art and, ultimately, a desire to push the images to a greater level of revelation and expression. Abstraction and expression are given their due place in these masterfully crafted images and objects. Arthur Bacon’s work is a solid example of what has now become the famous remark spoken by Bill de Kooning to Phillip Guston during Guston’s first showing of his figurative paintings: "…This is Freedom!"