translated and summarized by: Liz Wollner-Grandville,
190508: Renaissance revisited
Louvre: Jan Fabre
Renaissance revisited
Louvre’s innovative program “Counterpoint” offers contemporary artists the opportunity to set their work in a dialogue to the permanent collection of the museum. Visitors are encouraged to see works by masters such as van Eyck, Bosch and Rubens, through the eyes of a major contemporary artist.
This time the Louvre has invited the Flemish artist Jan Fabre, born 1958 in Antwerp. His retrospective will be shown in the Richelieu Wing until 07 July in the midst of masterpieces of the Écoles du Nord, ranging from Bosch to Rembrandt.
Fabre launched his career in the late 1970s with performances and became a shining star of the Flemish art scene in the 1980s. He participated in the prestigious Dokumenta 9 in Kassel as well as all major biennales. He founded the theatre company Troubleyn in 1986 and frequently performs at leading European venues, most recently at the Salzburg Festival. In 2005 he directed the Avignon Festival, paints, choreographs, produces videos and performances.
Fabre attends to major topics: life and death, sacrifice and resurrection, the opposition between humans and animals. In real life the artist comes across as a cunning and not at all as a metaphysically distanced person – something his works might suggest.
Fabre developed a narrative mesh of metaphors and chimeras, sculptures and self-portraits, related to the range of 14th century artwork to Peter Paul Rubens’ baroque bodies. Above all his fetish, the scarab beetle, which to him symbolizes metamorphosis, beauty, vanity and aloofness, is applied in many different ways.
Jan Fabre's world is not free of declamatory features and kitsch, but his view of the past and his cross connections are intriguing and motivate visitors see the old masters in a new light.
Louvre
Paris, until 07.07.2008
www.louvre.fr
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190508
Louvre
Paris, Palais-Royal Musée du Louvre
Tel: +33 (0)1 40 20 53 17
http://www.louvre.fr/
Öffnungszeiten: täglich 9-18, Dienstag geschlossen
Louvre
Paris, Palais-Royal Musée du Louvre
Tel: +33 (0)1 40 20 53 17
http://www.louvre.fr/
Öffnungszeiten: täglich 9-18, Dienstag geschlossen