If you see somebody lying on the pavement in the sunlight, with blood streaming from him, that is in itself – the color of the blood against the pavement – very invigorating…exhilarating – In all the motor accidents I’ve seen, people strewn across the road, the first thing you think of the strange beauty – the vision of it, before you think of trying to do anything. It’s to do with the unusualness of it. I once saw a really bad car accident on a large road, the bodies were scattered about with broken glass from the car, and the blood and various possessions, and it was in fact very beautiful – the beauty in it is terribly elusive, but it just happened to be in the disposition of the bodies, the way they lay and the blood, and perhaps it was also because it was not a thing one was used to seeing…it was midday, when the sun was very strong and on a white road
(inscribed by Peter Beard upper centre)
Discarded newspapers changing color in the sunlight, bones and carcasses that have been in the sea and sun + sand for a long time, gradually change into other things — There is a kind of beauty in that — a kind of magic. … I only work hoping that chance is going to work with me. It’s the same in everything — good luck is vital.
[from a talk with Francis Bacon on the die-off of 30,000 elephants + 5,000 Black rhinos in Tsavo, Kenya…1972]
(inscribed by Peter Beard lower centre)
Peter Beard, ICP Dead Elephant, 1971-72/1977
