More are forthcoming, but meanwhile already four have been erected: one
in the Gezelle Museum in Bruges, one in the Kunsthalle Wurth in Schwäbisch-Hall,
one
in the Collection Claudine et Jean-Marc Solomon, and one in Zoetermeer:
sculptures of Jan Fabre in full size (65 inch) and with full weight (300 kilo).
Moulded in a trendy outfit, he has his raincoat pulled over his head and
holds in the thus formed cavity a fire in his
hand: whence the title
'The man who gives fire'.
On the pedestal in Zoetermeer, a poem is carved, signed by 'The Emperor
of Loss' (Jan Fabre):
Ik brand heviger dan mag en voorzien
Ik brand en niet alleen voor mezelf
Maar ook om anderen vuur en licht te geven
Op diezelfde manier
Heb ik vuur en licht van anderen gekregen
I burn heavier than allowed and foreseen.
I burn and not only for myself
but also to bring fire and light to others
In the same way
have I received fire and light from others.
Praise Jan Fabre that he has had this poem - not more than a badly
written statement - carved on the pedestal of his sculpture as a kind of
manual. Otherwise, it would forever have remained a riddle how to solve
this rebus. A rebus is an image that has to be converted in words:
possibly the worst thing
you can say about a work of art. The only
problem with Jan Fabres rebus is that it is not compelling: all options are left open. When the original
sculpture was inaugurated in the Gezelle Museum in Bruges on occasion
of the Gezelle year in1009, Fabre told us : "Just
like I have received the fire form Gezelle through images in his poems,
just so do I hope to hand over the torch to other people'. (Jan Fabre
who hands over the torch of Gezelle: ever compared a verse of the great
Flemish poet with one of Jan Fabre?) And, judging from the
comments on the webpage of
Zoetermeer, another interpretation is possible: Jan Fabre inserted
his sculpture in the concept of 'the four elements earth, fire, water
and air, the basic idea behind the concept of the Hoekstra park'. No
longer the fire of art here, but fire as an element. Talking of polysemy! Jan Fabre
has always been a many-sided man, and that is also
the least you can say of
his rebuses. That is why he manages to introduce them so easily in the
most different contexts.
Totem -
the beetle on the Ladeuze Square in Louvain - is another example of Jan
Fabre's opportunistic 'polysemy'.
No shortage of interpretations with Jan Fabre anyway. The inhabitants of Bruges
had created their own interpretation when the sculpture was inaugurated
in their museum. According to them, Jan Fabre's 'Man who gives fire' would be the
representation of the saying 'holding a fire burning under one's coat',
a sign with which homosexuals used to make their intentions known to
kindred spirits, on a parking for example in the drizzly rain. And, in
view of the inclinations of Guido Gezelle, the celebrated priest-poet, that
interpretation testifies of a cleverness that surpasses the ingeniosity
of many an art critic. Although the question remains why Jan Fabre would
have applied the saying to his own self-representation.
But that highlights all the more the rebus-character of the work in
question: polysemy is here a painful testimony to the utter failure of
the image.
Let us leave the approach
of 'The man that gives fire' as a combination of text and image for what
it is, and focus on the image itself. Then, we have finished with
it even faster than with his equally masterly tortoise with the
pretentious title 'Searching
for Utopia'. 'The man who gives fire' is not more than a
glittering cast of the grandiloquent
master. And, as happens to be the case with casts, it is not only gleamy,
but also empty.
Whereas artists like Segal and Anthony Gormley know to coax some eloquence precisely from
such emptiness, 'the man
who gives fire' cannot but remind us of the awkward gestures and
unnatural attitudes of a - for the occasion gilded -
mannequin.
That makes us only ask the question why Jan Fabre absolutely wants to
venture himself in such a precarious undertaking as making a convincing
sculpture in our times. Why did he not just restrict himself to
the verbal statement from 'the Emperor of
Loss'? Why enforce such masterly verses by transforming them into a
life-size bronze sculpture? To lend them more
'weight? In the wake ofLawrence Weiner, who had his statements cast in
tons of steel?
All the more since an image is not added to
the word unpunished. Jan Fabre's sculpture contradicts not only his
'poem', but its title in the first place. The last thing one would think
of when confronted with the sculpture unprepared,
is of someone offering a fire to a smoker when it is windy.
If 'The man who gives fire' has something to do with smoking at
all, then rather with someone who just tries to light
his own cigarette against the wind. But there
is no trace whatsoever of a cigarette in the
mouth of the sculpture. Neither does the sculpture suggest that the
master would be offering a fire from under his cap to some smoker who
cannot give up smoking. And when you were to give that unclear -
and hence failed - gesture a meaning nevertheless,
the only possibility would be to suppose
that Jan Fabre has removed his cigarette form
his mouth - and for precisely the same reason as why
he has himself descend from his pedestal and
take place among the ordinary mortals on the earth's surface. Granted:
to light oneself in shameless self-gratification
standing on a pedestal and moulded in bronze that gleams like gold at
that - that is not done! And if it is
indeed allowed to resort to a text when interpreting
a sculpture, then it cannot escape our
attention that the second verse of the text on the pedestal asserts and
denies the self-gratification in one and the same sentence: 'I burn
and not only for myself'. Speaking of 'concept art' - say: contempt
of the image! And, again in the wake of
Weiner, concept and the crudest photorealism coincide also here. Although
the contradiction between image and text is here a revealing lapsus
at that.
The
rebus too polyinterpretable, hence, and the
image not precisely interesting. Perhaps the message might be
revelatory? Take that 'fire' that consumes Jan Fabre. What fire might
that well be? No doubt the man is consumed by a burning desire: as from
the commemorative plaque that he personally placed on his birth house,
he cannot stop from immortalising himself in bronze statues shimmering
like gold. And thàt fire he no doubt stole from gods like Duchamp, Warhol & Co,
who were no less greedy of
immortality - say:
of becoming famous at any price. And no doubt,
Jan Fabre knew to hand over that fire to others, with
whom he will have to share the fate of immortality. There are meanwhile
innumerable Fabres in spe. In that sense Jan Fabre's
ship is sailing under true colours.
But that is reckoned without the commentators whom Fabre has whispered
his message in the ears: according to them, we
are dealing her with the fire that Prometheus stole from the Gods and
brought to men. (You read it well:
Jan Fabre as the new Prometheus!) Jan Fabre's sculpture tells a
totally different story than his words. In the
sculpture, the Olympic fire is reduced to the meagre flame of a lighter
- a 'Bic' like his meanwhile famous blue ballpoints? Nothing in common,
hence, with the fire of which Nietzsche
asserted with a somewhat more founded self-conceit that he drunk its
flames back into
himself.
Even less than a lighter with Olympic fire has Jan Fabre to do with
Prometheus. Again, it is his statue that
speaks volumes here: what should have been a
promethean hero, has more of a sneaky drugs-dealer in a musty alley -
not to mention more obvious but more obscene associations. Unwillingly,
the image tells the truth about its maker: for there is no trace
whatsoever of a promethean revolt against the
Gods in Fabre's work. Rather has it something of the
obstinate 'fuck you!' that the puber utters
whenever something is put in his way. And just
like many a puber, Fabre is thereby immensely
admired by the countless impotents, who dare
not bring themselves to even mouth such a word.
I prefer Luigi Nono's Prometeo -
although it sounds like a blasphemy in my ears to even mention these
names in Jan Fabre's
context.
Even further removed than a lighter from an
Olympic fire and than Fabre from Prometheus, is the wind against which
Jan Fabre tries to protect his flame behind his pulled up raincoat from
the divine might against which Prometheus had to stand up. Call a
breeze, that does not even blow Jan Fabre in
his trendy outfit and dito shoes aside, storm, or even head wind, wouldbe no more than a ridiculous overstatement.
Anyway, what does Jan Fabre know of head wind?
His presumed protest against the 'establishment' is merely a sales stunt
that has meanwhile proved very successful: the delusion that art would
be synonymous with 'undermining well-established values' - stealing the
fire from the Gods is quite another matter - is still all too common
among the members of the art community. Renaud
Donnedieu de Vabres, the French minister of culture in person,
did not refrain from showing with his loud applause to an audience of
well cultivated 'Parisiens'
not so much what is 'bon ton', but foremost a 'compelling
must', when a genius
like Jan Fabre deals, by means of naked women
pissing on the scene, a 'fatal blow' to 'the establishment'...
Meet again on occasion of the next inauguration of the newest copy of
'The man that gives fire'?
Or of the inauguration of next multiple of
this master who stole the fire from Michelangelo?
© Stefan Beyst,
June 2005.