A Ghostly Presence

This pairing in a small gallery on the second floor of the original Phillips house is no coincidence; Intersections artist Arlene Shechet quite intentionally paired her ceramic work with Francis Bacon’s haunting Study of Figure in a Landscape (1952) from the museum’s permanent collection. “My piece is called The Possibility of Ghosts, and when I first saw the Bacon, I felt the ghostly presence of the gray figure, so that came together immediately,” said Shechet. The two pieces are the only works in the gallery, inviting focused and direct dialogue between them. Hear more from Shechet in this interview with the artist.