'Francis Bacon was my guy': Max Porter on his life-long obsession with the artist

The author reflects on the uncoolness of loving a famous painter, and the inspirations behind his latest book - a reimagining of Bacon's final days in Madrid

If I were to visit a floor plan of my artist obsessions and wander from room to room, there would be artists I will always have deep feelings for, the ones who provoke or engage especially, some for whom my affections have cooled, some I ought to revisit, some whose work is sewn organically to life experience and therefore exerts a nostalgic tug and some I've gone right off. Deep in this imaginary place is a bloody chamber, a dimensionless room full of bodies. A place I want to escape from, and a place I yearn to be back in. This room is my long and uneasy obsession with the paintings of Francis Bacon.

I can't resist the urge to ruffle the feathers of another baggage-heavy dead icon and re-examine his screaming masterworks. Gorgeous, horrifying images ripped from the book of unspeakable 20th-century brutality. Maybe it's to try to remind myself that it's not over, that he was on to something, that the clock is nearer to midnight now than it was then, and in some ways we seem past caring. Behind our wipe-clean screens the snarling reality of ecological collapse, exploitation, injustice, the human tendency towards industrial violence and cruelty is bloodier than ever. More than ever, despite our futile efforts, as Bacon says: We are all meat."