One artist I became infatuated with last summer was Jan Fabre. I stumbled across his work at the Louvre last summer and loved his art so much that it even inspired what I consider to be my best poem written to date.
A Belgian multidisciplinary artist, playwright, stage director, choreographer and designer to boot, Fabre’s conceptual art is both tantalizing and thought provoking. It expresses the ailments of a post-modern society in such a thrilling way, his work is always changing mediums and modes of expression. Purely dynamic and fun, I found myself wandering through the wing of the Louvre where they were holding an exhibition of Fabre’s work, seeking out his art that was littered between various classical works, getting a thrill out of the juxtapositioning of the mediums of old and new. In fact, the French have a panache for juxtaposing art from different centuries in such a startling fantastic way, take for instance the brilliant contrast between the Hellenic statues and the enormous spider (Louise Bourgeois’s “Maman”) around the Jardin Luxemborg (image below)…
I digress…Back to Fabre….
I particularly loved his ink pen sketches, one of the last mediums i worked with before I decided to focus on poetry for a while so I am particularly fond of them, such as this one- priceless sense of being jaded by too many pills, smoke, life, etc….and don’t I know too much about that state of mind =)
I particularly loved this theme created through the interplay of the following two pieces and what Fabre is trying to say.
Initially this piece appears as a bomb (don’t you just love The Last Supper in the background? Marvelous wicked sense of humor the French have, I’m telling you), if you look closely the ignition thread at the top is actually human vertebrae with a tuft of white hair……..
…Now look at the second piece…
The vertebrae has exploded into this enormous statue dominating the green sphere…and look at all that white lavish hair. Love his blend of morbidity and sense of fun, his themes, his mediums….if the green lobe is earth, and the vertebrae above it as the fuse string to set it alight….what big monsters he portrays us humans to be, in our showy head dress, dominating everything.
I won’t say what I think about the following piece, I’ll let you figure this one out sans my interpretation…but it is a coffin gilded with green scarabs, with the head, tail and feathers of a preening peacock…sublime symbolism…
Titled Anthropology of a Planet Le Probleme”
For the next piece, entitled “My Body My Blood My Landscape” the medium Fabre uses is his own blood and semen. Crazy, aye? Creative!
Apologies, my hand was shaky so this one came out a bit blurred, but still too good to not share.
Hope you enjoyed the little show, my darlings, and if you want more images of Fabre’s work let me know I will be happy to send them to you, I have images for at least 20 other pieces of his art.
I leave you with a final image of one of his pieces entitles “Moi, Revant” (Me, Dreaming). It is a tack-studded statue at a table looking through a microscope. Oh, how beautiful, as if he is studded and pricked by life, which he observes through a microscope, as most artists do. Ciao, Xx
Perception Point 