Thursday 9th May 2013 - 20:00, BOZAR Centre for Fine Arts / Studio, Belgium In association with the exhibition 'Changing States: Contemporary Irish Art & Francis Bacon's Studio' the BOZAR Centre for Fine Arts is hosting a lecture by Author and Head of the Visual Arts Programme at Sint Lucas University - Wouter Davidts. The lecture entitled: 'Displacement and Reconstruction: The Francis Bacon Studio, Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin' will see Davidts consider artists whom are well known to have thoroughly rearranged, reconstructed or extended their studios, including Gustave Moreau, Kurt Schwitters and contemporary figures such as Urs Fischer. Artists for whom the studio is not just a place for making art, but a practice in itself. With the artists subjecting the space and its architectural framework to a variety of forms of rhetoric and iconography as they work on the construction, representation, and reflection of their own artistic identity. The lecture will be analysing the extent to which such an extensive historical background can be employed as a reference framework for a crital analysis of museum reconstructions of artist's studios over recent decades. Particularly the striking reconstruction of Francis Bacon's Studio at the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin. After Francis Bacon’s death in 1992 his famously chaotic studio was as the artist left it until 1998 when it was donated to the Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane by Bacon’s heir John Edwards and Brian Clarke, executor of the Estate of Francis Bacon. The ambitious studio relocation demands included: a team of archaeologist, the first computerised archive of the entire contents of a world ranking artist’s studio, and the collection, bagging and suitable relocation of a thick layer of paint dust to the installation in Ireland. A truly remarkable project considering as an artist Bacon had never regarded his studio as a distinct artistic project, let alone as a space to be preserved for history.
Along with conceptual questions about the original artistic intention and museological concerns about historical authenticity, this ambitious undertaking also raises, above all, a series of fascinating architectural issues. This is a ticketed event priced €4 - €6. Tickets also include access to the archives of Francis Bacon on the 9th May 2013 before the lecture. For tickets and more information about the lecture click here. The exhibition 'Changing States: Contemporary Irish Art & Francis Bacon's Studio' is on until the 19 May 2013. Wouter Davidts Lecture ‘Displacement and Reconstruction: The Francis Bacon Studio, Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin’ BOZAR Centre For Fine Arts / Studio 23 rue Ravenstein, 1000 Bruxelles www.bozar.be/ Info and tickets: 02 507 82 00 Wouter Davidts lives and works in Antwerp, Belgium. He is Head of the Visual Arts Programme at Sint Lucas University College of Art and Design, Antwerp. He is the author of Bouwen voor de kunst? (A&S/books, 2006) and co-edited The Fall of the Studio (Valiz, 2009), CRACK: Koen van den Broek (Valiz, 2010), and Luc Deleu – T.O.P. office: Orban Space (Valiz, 2012). He curated Abstract USA 1958–1968. In the Galleries at the Rijksmuseum Twenthe in Enschede (2010) and Orban Space: Luc Deleu – T.O.P. office at Stroom Den Haag (2012).
