The Art of

134
14
In his book about
Francis Bacon’s work,
Gilles Deleuze distinguishes
between the
figurative and the
Figure (“figural”).
While figurative work
is illustrative, narrative,
and signifying (it
represents an object or
narrates a story) the
Figure is something
like pure form. Gilles
Deleuze, Francis
Bacon: The Logic of
Sensation, London /
New York: Continuum,
2003, p. 34.
of those repeated juxtapositions of bodies and corpses a Figure 14 was
formed, an outcome of shock. This Figure pointed out the extremities
of modern civilisation, while placing itself between the emerging spectacle—of
media, fashion, entertainment and eventually art itself—and
horror. It featured a body that after Auschwitz had been expropriated
from itself as a private, personal site and became public.
TAL STERNGAST