MORE MASTERPIECES OF JAN FABRE
Apparently, Jan Fabre cannot get enough of himself. He had himself cast
in bronze in sculptures like 'The man who gives fire' (1999), 'The man
who measures the clouds' (1998) and 'Searching for Utopia ' (2003). After
a brief intermezzo, in which he deemed the Belgian astronaut Dirk Frimout worthy of a bronze sculpture on top of the Kursaal in Ostend 'Man
directing the sea', 2006),
he continues to have himself cast in bronze - or in wax - in one
ridiculous hollow theatrical pose after another.Take 'I let myself drain', (2006)
a life-sized wax figure, not unworthy of a place in Madame
Tussauds, banging his head against the painting 'Portrait of a Magistrate' by Rogier van der Weyden with blood
dripping from his nose and pooling on the floor. It would testify to
some self-knowledge, were it not for the imposture of deeming himself so
important as to let the whole world know that he is simply not
able to equal the old masters. On occasion of the installation of this
masterpiece in the Museum in Antwerp in ('Homo Faber', 2007),
Michael
Savage writes: 'The sheer, unfounded arrogance of putting some one
of Fabre's meagre talents alongside these giants is unforgivable;
allowing him to obscure them is criminal'. Besides: see also
Kristof Kintera;
Revolution (2005). Another very
interesting pose is that of 'The man writing on water' (2006),
the artist sitting in a suit in the second of a series of seven polished
bronze bathtubs, attempting to write on the
surface of the water with his finger. It is a remake of 'Hé, wat een plezierige zotheid' (1988), seven
bathtubs in bic blue, each one with an owl in Murano glass. The new
version is in more solid bronze (versions with beetles are equally
available). The owls are replaced with a
self-portrait. The idea refers to a poem
of the nineteenth-century Flemish poet Guido Gezelle “Het schrijverke”,
in which a water dragonfly writes God’s name on the water, to
Jean-Louis David's
'Death of Marat' ,.and also to
the habit of the artist to work in a bathtub. The seven basins are said
to refer to
the seven days of the week. It is Tuesday, hence: Martis dies, the day
of Mars. In terms of the seven planets of the solar system, however, Jan Fabre is orbiting around the sun as Venus. No doubt a reference to a
metamorphosis like the one in ‘Quando L'Uomo principale
è una donna’ (2004). Things are totally different when we look at the
installation from the other side. Then, Jan Fabre is sitting in the
sixth basin. To Christians, the sixt day, Saturday, is the day on which
God, whose name Jan Fabre as the water
dragon-flie from Gezelle's poem is writing on the water, created man. In
this context, the finger, with which Jan Fabre is writing God's name on
the water, cannot but remind us of that other finger, with which
Michelangelo has God create Adam is his famous fresco 'The creation of
Adam'. Another reference that lays bare another twofold metamorphosis:
that of God into a creation after the image and the likeness of
Fabre The
Creator. Still other interpretations come into view when we follow Isabelle de Baets*,
who
holds that the basins can also be conceived as tombs (think of Marat!). A
multi-layered work, no doubt! According to the catalogue
to 'Anthropology of the planet', the
'sculpture', is "a gesture of impossibility, but a metaphor for the
metamorphosis of creating". The masterpiece is supposed to 'express
a will to strive towards the absolute and eternity'.
According to Isabelle de Baets*
it is a 'metaphor for the artist as a
mediator between the material and immaterial, spiritual world'. Of
course, countless other interpretations possible.... Besides, these
interpretations would also apply when Jan Fabre had been sitting there
in person, in real water, in a real bathtub. Wherewith the irrelevance
of this sculpture as a sculpture is amply demonstrated.
Jan Fabre cannot get enough of riding either. After mounting a bronze
tortoise in Searching for Utopia ' (2003)
he is now steering his brains in 'The artist trying to tame his
own brain' (2007) in a somewhat cheaper version in
wax. Apparently, the artist thinks big of the brains that nevertheless
produced such a poor sculpture...With
'I spit on my tomb' (2007) we find ourselves not so
much in Madame Tussauds, as rather in a horror cabinet. The artist,
dressed in that trendy raincoat of his, is hanging on the ceiling. Jan
Fabre already handled the theme - referring to a real episode when his
father cut the rope - in 'Dependens' (1979-2003), where the body and the
coat are covered with thumbnails and nails and in
his Selfportrait (1999) 'Jan Emiel Constant Fabre, the servant of art
hanging on a tree'. In this version, Jan Fabre
is cast in wax and he wears a real raincoat. From his ceiling, the
artist is spitting on a field of toppled black marble
gravestones of granite on which the names of insects are engraved
with the date of birth and death of artists (such as Proust, Schönberg, Kandinsky,
Thierry De Cordier and Panamarenko) , philosophers
(Foucault),
musicians writers, scientists, etc.. According to Jan
Fabre, the work alludes to Caspar David Friedrich's
“The Arctic Sea” (1824), which for Fabre
represents death fields and “The Wanderer Overlooking the Sea of Fog”
(1818).The
title is borrowed from Boris Vian's 'J'irai cracher sur vos
tombes'. Apparently, the artist cannot refrain from
degrade the masters that he is unable to equal - his deceased twin
brother? - into insects. I dare hope this contempt is only the corollary
of the self-depreciation that makes him hang himself and spit on his own
grave....The installation has been recycled for 'The Angel of
Metamorphosis' in the Louvre (2008) as 'Selfprotrait
as the biggest earthworm'.Despite all these exercises in clumsiness, bad taste, cheap
philosophy and outdated artist mythology, Jan Fabre is - at least in the
press releases - widely praised as 'one of the most
fascinating artists in Belgium and on the international scene'.
This is definitely not our opinion. We cannot continue to repeat ourselves.
That is why we refer to the links above for a more detailed analysis.
© Stefan Beyst, June 2007.
'Jan Fabre: De bronzen' Wever & Berg, 2007)
After 'Heaven of Delight', Jan Fabre decorated
another ceiling, this time not with beetles, but with feathers: 'The
night of Diana' or ''Le Cabinet Rubens-Fabre' - in the Paris 'Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature'.
Whereas 'Heaven of delight' was a purely decorative work, 'The Night of
Diana' attempts to be figurative: a central face of an owl is surrounded
by four other faces with human eyes. Whereas 'Heaven of Delight' has its
merits as a purely decorative work, 'The night of Diana' lays bare all
the shortcomings of Jan Fabre as an artist. It suffices to compare his
poor performance with the incomparable vaults of the Hagia Sofia. The
incorporation of a Rubens in such a clumsy construction is a sheer
insult.
With the two lambs of 'Sanguis sum' (2001),
Jan Fabre initiates his golden period. The installation consists of a pair of
gold-plated lambs with party hats, one standing and the other dead. It
is typical for our age where the 'concept' has completely replaced the
image - at least in the realm of the plastic arts - that the French
philosopher Michel Onfray* manages to write a substantial text about this work without even
one word about the sculptures as such: despite the gold, they are not
precisely masterpieces of animal sculpting. When Jan Fabre would have
used two real lambs, the text would apply as well: or rather, equally be
besides the question. According to Michel Onfray, 'Sanguis sum' is a
direct reference to the Van Eyck brothers’ 'Adoration of the Mystic
Lamb'. Why? Not every lamb, even with the title 'Sanguis sum', refers to
'Adoration of the mystic Lamb'. Jan Fabre points to the fact that there
are two lambs, just like there are two brothers van
Eyck. But there are more brothers than the Van Eycks: apart from
Jan Fabre and his dead twin brother, there are also the Marx Brothers,
who have certainly also something to do with party hats. Even when we
admit that the lambs refer to the Van Eyck Brothers or to the Mystic
Lamb, how do we have to understand the master's comment that we are
dealing with a metaphor for the artist? Michel Onfray gives free rain to
his philosophical imagination: Jan Fabre's cogito would be 'I bleed,
therefore I am', which does certainly not apply to Jesus, after all the
real lamb. At the end of his comment, Michel Onfray concludes: 'Jan
Fabre brings an allegory of the death of art through reversing the
situation.... Art is death, but, by saying this, the artist shows how
alive it is....' Well....
From 2006 onwards, Jan Fabre begins to work with stuffed animals. 'Carnival
for the dead street dogs“ (2006) is an installation with six stuffed dogs amidst confetti and
streamers. 'The messengers of death decapitated' (2006) was intended for
'Homo Faber' in Antwerp (2007), where it was exhibited in front of Frans Floris' 'Fall of
the rebel Angels',features five (for 'The Angel of Metamorphosis in
the Louvre 2008: five) owls' heads placed on a church cloth. Why seven?
The altar and the cloth could suggest that we are dealing with the Seven
sacraments. But why then are there only five left in the Louvre? We are told that
Jan Fabre wants to overcome the finiteness of our existence by
decapitating the messengers of death. And that, 'in the Flemish
tradition, these nocturnal birds are associated with madness as well as
wisdom'. Does that mean that Fabre also wants to eliminate madness and
wisdom? However that may be, this installation is surely the bearer of an immensely interesting content.
Fortunately enough:as pure
'sculptures', they would certainly not catch the attention of the public
on the exhibition of some local hobby club or craft fayre Fortunately also that Jan
Fabre was so kind to provide us with the explanatory title and some
comments: the stuffed heads show no trace of decapitation, and they
surely do not look dead: they are looking at us with open human eyes.
Animals with human eyes: Fabre's eternal theme of metamorphosis....
©
Stefan
Beyst, June 2007;
* 'Jan Fabre: De bronzen'
(Uitgeverij Wever & Berg, 2007).
From the
Cellar to the Attic / From the Feet to the Brain
Most conspicuous in this exhibition at the Kunsthaus Brengenz is 'In
the trenches of the brain as an artist-Lilliputian'
'In den Schützengräben des Gehirns'
(2008)'. In a landscape furrowed with trenches, a giant skinned human
head emerges. Jan Fabre, as a Lilliputian on top of it, is digging in it
with a shovel. This is not so much sculpture, let alone a 'sculptural
tableau', as rather a frozen scene from the theatre, where Jan Fabre
feels better at home. No doubt, the artist has the intention to convey
us some very important message - ein 'Denkmodell'. But, as usual, we are
left in uncertainty about the meaning. Is the artist digging trenches in
the battlefield of the brain? And, if yes, to what purpose? Why is the
head skinned? Who are the warrying parties? Shall we not rather consider
this' tableau mort" as a 'mysterious' surrealistic scene in the 'good
old Belgian tradition'? As far as I am concerned: pseudo philosophy
packed as pseudo art....
© Stefan Beyst, October 2008.