see also:
the secret charms
of luc tuymans
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The Angel of Metamorphosis Jan Fabre at the Louvre: a rebel besmirching the temple under the auspices of a queen.... |
nederlandse versie
version française
Marie-Laure Bernadac, who has equally curated 'Feminine/Masculine: The
Sex of Art' (Beabourg, 1995), ''Présumés innocents' (Bordeaux,
2000), and
Louise Bourgeois at Beaubourg, has invited
Jan Fabre for the forth annual exhibition 'Counterpoint'': 'The Angel
of Metamorphosis' (2008).
The exhibition has been opened by Her Majesty Queen Paola Ruffo di
Calabria of the Kingdom of Belgium.
Jan Fabre: 'I am the first living artist to get a solo
exhibition at the Louvre'. Reason enough to triumph! After all, not
everybody is allowed to engage in a dialogue with the Flemish masters of
the past in no less than 39 rooms of the Richelieu Wing of the Louvre in
Paris!
Reason enough, also, to have a closer look at this megalomaniac enterprise.
As could be expected from someone who has to stuff some 39 galleries,
not all the works are new
Many of the 'installations' have been exhibited elsewhere:
suffice it to refer to works like 'Sanguis sum'
(2001); 'the dung-beetle' (2001); 'Vermis Dorsualis
& Devil Masks' (2002); 'Still life with artist' (2004); 'Sarcofago Conditus'
(2003); 'The Messengers of Death decapitated' (2006) and 'I let myself drain
(2006), this time with a portrait of Philip the Good after Rogier
van der Weyden.
In other installations, new elements are introduced. The Venice version
of
The man spitting on his grave
(Palazzo Benzon, 2007) has been recycled as 'Self
portrait as the biggest worm of the world' (2008). Jan Fabre hanging from the ceiling has
been replaced by Jan Fabre as an earthworm, repeating the phrase 'I want
to draw my head out of the hangman's rope of history': a seemingly humble gesture,
which is immediately spoiled by the artist's contention that this
creature 'fertilises the soil', if not by the sole new title: Fabre is
the biggest among other earthworms - great artists and philosophers, who
have been reduced to the status of insect.
To be sure, there are also new works created especially for the
exhibition. Most conspicuous is the installation in the Lefuel
staircase: 70 Murano glass pigeons painted in bic blue, Fabre's trade
mark, with the illuminating title:
"Shitting rats of heaven and doves of peace'
(2008). As could be
expected from Jan Fabre, who is fond of body fluids, they are defecating
all over the stairwell. Not otherwise than 'Totem'
and 'The legs of reason skinned' (2000),
a gesture that lays bare the truth that goes
hidden behind the seeming 'humility' of 'I let myself drain': instead of
drawing the conclusion that he would better resign from painting when he
is not able to equal the old masters, Jan Fabre not only deems himself
so important that he has himself cast in wax to commemorate his
impotence, but has at the same time his Fabre-blue pigeons sh.t on the walls of the
respectable museum where those very masters are celebrated. It reminds me of
that other hero of abject fluids: Paul McCarthy
who cannot stop repeating that painting is nothing more that smearing
canvasses with
sh.t.
Equally new is 'Votive
offering to the god of insomnia' (2008) made of wax appendages covered
with glass eyes. According to the press release, it is 'about the
difficulty of falling asleep due to the seductions of the world of the
senses, symbolized by the numerous landscapes and portraits hanging in
room 30'. According to Jan Fabre himself, it 'refers' to Georges Bataille's
'Histoire de l'oeil'. There are worlds apart, however, between a really
Bataillesque work like Hans Bellmer's 'La Poupée', and Jan Fabre's
creation, where the relation is purely superficial: a mere 'reference'.
Also the presumed 'dialogue' between the works of Jan Fabre and the Old
masters comes down to a rather fortuitous juxtaposition on mostly
superficial grounds. In some cases, there may be a hint of a thematic
relation. Thus, the gilded nail man 'Sarcofago Conditus' (2003), is presented opposite works by Hans Memling that are supposed to
'pay tribute to death and resurrection', whereby the distinctive
characteristic of this tomb lies precisely in the fact that the body is
covered with gilded nails. I do not feel anything 'reverberate' with
that central given in the entire room.
Merely literal is the juxtaposition of drawings on banknotes 'Money
Collages' with Marinus van Reymerswaele’s 'Tax Collectors', or of
drawings with the artist’s own blood (from the 1978 solo performance 'My
Body, My Blood, My Landscape') with the 'Martyrdom of
Saint Denis' by Henri Bellechose. In other cases, the relation seems to be dragged in by the
head and shoulders. Thus, the display cases presenting 'Vermis Dorsualis
& Devil Masks' (2002) (meant is: dorsalis) are supposed to allude to the 'finery worn by Hélène Fourment in the portrait by Rubens and the whiteness of her skin'.
And 'The dung-beetle' (2001), a sphere made of scarab wing sheaths,
topped with a backbone and positioned on an oversized stained mattress, is supposed to 'dialogue' with (the splendor of
the fabric and the pearls ornamenting) the robe in the portrait of Maria
de Medicis by Frans II Pourbus... In
other rooms the relation is purely external, as when Jan Fabre uses the
colour of paintings of Justus of Ghent as a mere pretext to deploy four
drawings ('The Hour Blue').
The blatant superficiality of the relation between the works of this
'contemporary giant' with the old masters, then, obliges us to question
the declared intentions of this show. According to the press release,
the 'universe of the artist' is connected 'with the main themes running
through the Louvre’s collections' so that the visitor can
'rediscover celebrated works by old masters through the eyes of this
major artist of the contemporary scene'. I must confess that I really do
not see what the 40 tons of black marble and that bluntly ridiculous
earthworm of Jan Fabre can add to the already impressive body of texts
that has been produced on the subject of Rubens' Medici Cycle. We really
had not to await the advent of this genius to understand that there is
some contradiction between the pomp of this series and the rather
insignificant queen it is celebrating, especially since there is an even
greater contradiction between the tons of marble and the futility
of the message they are supposed to convey. Granted, in the last instance even
Peter-Paul Rubens and other 'old masters', are
meaningless insects on the surface of the earth. But that does not
amount to say that all the earthworms are of the same caliber. Although
Fabre esteems that he is the biggest of them all, as far as
I am concerned, he does not at all deserve a place in the Pantheon of the
'great insects of our planet', except then as a parasite that feasts
upon the corpses of his illustrious predecessors (if not as a pigeon
that has to content itself with sh.tting on the tombstones).
The sheer incongruence between the futility of the presumed
'rediscovery' and the megalomania of the enterprise - 39 galleries and
40 tons of marble - betrays that something else must be at stake here:
it is obvious that the declared intention is a mere disguise for
something totally opposite. The emphasis with which Jan Fabre's works
are confronted - put on a par - with the works of the old masters is one
single giant non-verbal statement: that Jan Fabre deserves his place among the
heroes in the Louvre as a Pantheon of the Arts, if not that his works is
worth so much more than all the old masters together. For, Jan Fabre is
not only the first living artist that is allowed to stuff 39 galleries
in the Louvre: for centuries, the dead masters had to content themselves
with far less - although to a painter with the stature of a Jan van
Eyck, some square meter on a single wall suffice to tell what Jan Fabre
will never be able to, even when he would summon up even more tons of
granite in even more galleries. The formula - the
endorsement of would-be artworks with masterpieces in the museums - is
becoming increasingly popular. Suffice it to refer to Spencer Tunick,
who had one of his 'body sculptures' emphatically piled up in front of Rubens' 'Venus and Adonis' in Düsseldorf (2006), a
gesture that does not suffice, however, to turn the 'displayed reality' of his
piled up naked bodies into a 'sculpture', let alone into a composition
that could match the grandeur of say Rubens' 'Fall of the Angels'. During the summer of
that same year 2006, also Jan Fabre, as in a kind of rehearsal for
the present show, had the attributes and
video-tapes of his poor performance 'Virgin-Warrior/Warrior-Virgin' with
Marina Abramovic exhibited in the prestigious Rubens Hall in the
Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp ('Homo Faber', 2006), as if we were dealing here with
comparable items, let alone comparable quality... Also the photographers
have successfully used the technique in their endeavour to conquer the
temples of art (see Andreas Gursky and
Joel-Peter Witkin).
All these so-called 'dialogues' or 'confrontations' -
counterpoints - are themselves an offshoot of
the technique of 'reference' which became so popular in
the age of postmodernism,
when many a would-be artist deemed it sufficient to allude to some masterpiece
to make art, or art with the quality of the work referred to.
Take Heaven of Delight of Jan Fabre himself. No
doubt, the title refers to Hieronymus Bosch. But that does not Fabre's
ceiling turn it
into a 'Sistine Chapel', and even less does it elevate Jan Fabre to the rank of Hieronymus Bosch. And the same holds for Paul
McCarthy's
'Butt Plug: even when it is said to refer to Constantin Brancusi, it is
certainly not a match to the sculptures of that master.
The truth is that a genuine 'dialogue' or 'confrontation' with the old
masters is not so much a question of referring, let alone of bluntly
usurping the temple with tons of marble, but rather of producing
artworks that are a real match to those of the masters: just think of Ludwig
van Beethoven's 'Diabelli Variations' as a response to Bach's 'Goldberg
Variations', or of Anton Bruckner's or Gustav Mahler's Ninth Symphonies
as a response to Ludwig van Beethoven's Ninth. Or of Manet's Olympia and Titian's Venus of
Urbino. Can you imagine Jan Fabre reaching such heights? I guess he is
better at 'sh.tting'.... After all, Jan
Fabre's works really do not belong in the Louvre. Not far from Paris,
there is a place where they would find a more appropriate natural
habitat: Euro Disney. Granted: could you imagine a better place for his
'Searching for Utopia'? Also his newest
metamorphosis into an earthworm would certainly be welcomed there...
Having Murano glass pigeons sh.t on the walls of the Louvre: even more
eloquently than 'The Legs of Reason Skinned'
or' 'Totem', 'Shitting rats of heaven and doves of peace' epitomises the true nature of our so-called 'enfant
terrible'. All his sh.tting and shocking is not more than the blind and
pointless rebellion of the petty-bourgeois, that nearly disguises the
equally petty-bourgeois rancour of not belonging to the upper class -
or, for that matter, to the gallery of the giants of the past. Luckily
for Jan Fabre, Queen Paola herself has elevated him to a higher rank
by having our universal genius decorate
the ceiling of the Mirror Hall in her palace ('Heaven
of delight'), and having her husband, King Albert II, elevate him to the rank of 'Grand Officer in the Order of the
Crown of Belgium' (!!!) A pity that our Queen no longer belongs
to the kind of aristocracy that was not only an aristocracy of blood,
but also an aristocracy of taste.
Granted: there is a
difference between Julius II who had Michelangelo paint the Sistine
Chapel and sculpt his tomb, and someone who is proud to be the patron of
a would-be artist that has Murano-glass pigeons sh.t on the walls of
the Louvre....Not only is Queen Paola a mere shadow of that shadow of a
queen, Maria de Medici - petty aristocracy so to speak - she even does not seem to realise that her
protégé is no more than a mere shadow - a caricature - of Rubens. Although she must
surely have felt reassured to see her choice confirmed by the
sanctification of her protégé in the Holy of Holiest: the Louvre. A
pity, again, that, apparently, the keys to the temple are no longer kept by the so
scorned 'grand custodians of art', but rather by that new race of
enlightened 'petty curators' that has sworn not to miss another Van
Gogh. A shadow of a queen, opening the show of the shadow of an artist,
in what has become the shadow of a 'museum', applauded by scores of
well-dressed petty-revolutionaries who come to install the Emperor of
Artistic Impotence on his Sh.tting Chair in the Louvre: do not miss that
show!
Next stop in Bayreuth?
© Stefan Beyst,
Avril 2008
Fortunately, we do not stand not alone: also French historian Jean-Louis
Harouel virulently criticises Jan Fabre's exhibit at the Louvre in 'Le
Figaro'. A quotation: 'Contemporary art, which isn't art, seeks to
assume an artistic legitimacy by establishing a forced confrontation
with the greatest works of art. It sucks the lifeblood out of them to
try to affirm its own standing as a real piece of art'. See also:
'La
vampirisation du Louvre'.
Lynn Barber in 'The
Guardian' writes 'What a miserable worm!'. 'I
would have thought any first-year art student would leap at the chance
of making a giant worm for the Louvre, but Fabre gives us the sort of
standard-issue, beige draught-excluder you could find at any craft fayre.'
Kimberly Bradley in
Artnet: 'The relation of Fabre’s objects (and the ego they
represent) to the classical works in the Louvre is uncertain, ambiguous,
arbitrary.'
Following quotation speaks volumes about the fans of Jan Fabre: 'Jan
Fabre work is now being exhibited at the Louvre in Paris, and, his work:
"Self Portrate as the World Biggest Worm" is like a ray of sunshine
amongst all the biblical, classical and renessance era crap that's
there.' (Moon
babies).
See also:
Aude de Kerros:
À quoi sert l'exposition Jan-Fabre au Louvre ?
Pétition au ministre de la culture
Interview with Christine Sourgins ('Les mirages de l'Art contemporain'):
Prise d'otage au musée du Louvre
Reactions:
beyst.stefan@gmail.com
see also:
stefan beyst on contemporary artists
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As
part of his performance "Art kept me out of jail (and out of museums)," Jan Fabre designed a new cup for the Illy Art Collection Produced in an edition of 1,000, it can be purchased at the Louvre shop for €49,50 |
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referrers Soundblog Gogoparis GalliaWatch Culture Wars
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On April 22, 2008 , the artist will present a performance in the Daru Gallery entitled 'Art Kept Me Out of Jail (and Out of Museums)' On Saturday, April 26 RoseLee Goldberg Director of PERFORMA, discusses the performance work of Flemish artist Jan Fabre |
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