Bacon’s working material was not meant to last. In fact, the decay of the torn leaves, paint-spattered photographs and newspaper clippings was a pivotal element in his art – both for his iconography and on a conceptual level. In that it shows strong parallels to ephemeral art, which emerged around the same time that Bacon established his studio practice in 7 Reece Mews. I am exploring these coherences in my latest essay Vom Leben und Sterbenlassen in Reece Mews. Francis Bacons fotografisches Arbeitsmaterial, that was just published in the proceedings of the Marbach Weimar Wolfenbüttel Research Association’s midterm conference “Verschwinden” Vom Umgang mit materialen und medialen Verlusten in Archiv und Bibliothek.