JAN FABRE. La saggezza del Belgio
Galleria Gaburro, Milano December 02, 2022 - February 12, 2023
The Gaburro Gallery in Via Cerva 25, Milan, presents a solo exhibition of works by Jan Fabre (b. 1958, Antwerp), one of the foremost contemporary artists. The event runs from 2 December 2022 to 12 February 2023. Entitled La saggezza del Belgio (The Wisdom of Belgium) and curated by Giacinto Di Pietrantonio, the exhibition includes about thirty small-format drawings from the Folklore Sexuel Belge and Mer du Nord Sexuelle Belge series, together with ten sculptures, which are being shown for the first time in Italy. In these works, Jan Fabre questions Belgian identity, sexuality and sensuality, which he examines through the visual lens of surrealism, a feature of his work and indeed of all Belgian art. Jan Fabre, who in this case clearly refers to himself as “Le Bon Artiste Belge”, shows a series of works that aim to reveal a national Belgian identity that is by no means unambiguous, but rather highly diverse, as a result of its three different communities – Flemish, Walloon, and German-speaking. These communities are themselves even more fragmented internally, but he seeks to find wisdom and commonalities within them in order to “unite rather than divide”. Each drawing bears the witty inscription ÉDITÉ ET OFFERT PAR JAN FABRE LE BON ARTISTE BELGE (Published and offered by Jan Fabre, the good Belgian artist), which takes from an advertisement for chocolate: “Côte D’Or, Le Bon Chocolat Belge”. The original slogan appeared in the 1960s on postcards with Belgian folklore pictures, attached to the famous brand of chocolate, a powerful worldwide symbol of Belgium. However, Fabre accompanies his drawings with these words not just for the sweetness of the chocolate, but also metaphorically for its “dark side” – its origins in Belgian colonialism in the Congo, a theme the artist has been working on for many years. As a self-proclaimed “Warrior of Beauty”, he acts within art and in defence of art, interacting with scientific knowledge, popular wisdom, and the relationship between man and nature, making everything converge on a central poetic vision of metamorphosis. Fabre thus acts as an artistic revolutionary as he attempts to overturn the current state of things, often using references to the carnival as a means of overturning and suspending reality. His sculptures are extravagant, irreverent and flamboyant, like the carnival, folklore and theatrical traditions of Belgium. “In his attempt to overturn the visual language of the world and its rules,” remarks Giacinto Di Pietrantonio, “Jan Fabre reconsiders the rules of sexuality, which in this particular case lead him to interact with some prototypical artists, even going back to the most “surrealist” of all: Hieronymus Bosch. The iconography and iconology of Fabre’s drawings and sculptures in this exhibition do indeed appear to emerge from the paintings of the heretic Flemish artist of the Renaissance. Marine elements, including shells, men, animals and plants, undergo surreal and symbolic human-animal metamorphoses in an orgy of colours, shapes and sexuality, which Fabre astutely also reinterprets in light of the evolution of popular cultures.” “His art”, continues Giacinto Di Pietrantonio, “is always a swing between high and low, past and present. His modus operandi also keeps him tied to the tradition of the voluptuous baroque bodies of his fellow citizen Rubens. This is particularly evident in his Mer du Nord Sexuelle Belge series, in which plump little cupids and chubby little Venuses are born from seashells. On the other hand, in terms of their palette and characterisation, the Folklore Sexuel Belge drawings close the circle at the modern end, with an eye to the carnivalesque and grotesque expressive art of his compatriot James Ensor’s Christ’s Entry into Brussels in 1889. In his artistic maturity, Fabre draws on the wisdom of Belgium, reinterpreting an alternative visual and narrative tradition of folk legends forged by a culture that stretches back into the mists of time and that art saves from extinction.” ▲
ciò che può “connettere piuttosto che dividere”.
Su ogni disegno campeggia la spiritosa scritta “Èdité et offert par Jan Fabre le bon artiste belge” (Pubblicato e offerto da Jan Fabre, il bravo artista belga) che fa ricorso alla frase pubblicitaria della cioccolata “Côte D’OR, Le Bon Chocolat Belge” riportata sulle cartoline con immagini del folklore belga allegate negli anni sessanta alla nota cioccolata, forte simbolo alimentare identitario sovranazionale del Belgio.
Fabre sceglie tuttavia di accompagnare i disegni con questa definizione non solo per la dolcezza che la cioccolata esprime, ma metaforicamente anche per il suo “lato oscuro”, in quanto nasce dal colonialismo belga in Congo, tema su cui l’artista lavora da anni. Autodefinitosi “Guerriero della Bellezza”, con le sue opere agisce nell’arte e in difesa di essa. Fabre dialoga con il sapere scientifico, la saggezza popolare e il rapporto uomo-natura, facendo convergere tutto verso la centrale poetica della metamorfosi, cercando di rovesciare lo stato delle cose… Insomma, è a tutti gli effetti, un pittore rivoluzionario del linguaggio. ▲