«I JUST READ EVERYTHING»

And then it hit me. Why is Bacon suddenly the man of the hour? Because he fills a need. A need that Hirst cannot satisfy.There are some people who were never "taken in" by Hirst. They saw through him from the start. Clever them. But others among us love art, and want it to be fierce and necessary and impossible to ignore. That's why we got excited about Hirst in the 1990s, when his striking images of nature, death and imprisonment said so much more than most of today's art. I am a disillusioned fan of Hirst, a bereft former believer. And now, when I look at the art of Bacon, I feel an old passion stir. It is not too late to believe, after all. Bacon is my new art god, and for a simple reason. He is Damien Hirst – with talent. Now that Hirst is so abjectly exhausted, the stupendous Bacon looms up in his vacated vitrine.

-Jonathan Jones
 -The Guardian