Apparently, the Louvre has a new policy of showing bits of contemporary art but, until now, they have been small, mixed shows taking not much space. Now, for its first solo show by a living artist, it has chosen a Belgian, Jan Fabre, and given him the whole of the Northern School wing — 40 rooms containing top-notch van Eycks, Bruegels, Rembrandts, Rubenses, Vermeers — to play with. He was allowed to move pictures and rearrange rooms to place his work among the Old Masters — i.e. he was given just about the most flattering commission any artist could receive and the big question is: why Jan Fabre?
The catalogue informs us that he was born in 1958 in Antwerp, where he has lived ever since, and that he was one of the pioneers of the Flemish New Wave of the 1980s, which I admit passed me by. He first came to public attention with his “Bic Art” drawings in blue ballpoint. He has his own theater troupe in Antwerp and describes himself as “dessinateur, plasticien, performeur, auteur, homme de theatre, choregraphe, editeur” which I think translates as jack of all trades.
He also claims to be a descendant of the famous entomologist Jean-Henri Fabre (1823-1915), which he likes to advertise by including insects and beetles in his work. Several of his large objects — I hesitate to call them sculptures — are completely covered with iridescent, blue-green scarabs — an eye-catching conceit the first time you see it and very, very boring thereafter.
Beetles are just one medium he favors — he also works in Biro, bone, gold sequins, drawing pins, skulls, vertebrae, synthetic hair, armor, feathers, stuffed birds and animals. He claims the bone is human bone, but this is probably one of his “jokes.” A typical work is Nature morte avec artiste, a full-size coffin covered with blue-green beetles with a peacock’s head, tail and wings sticking out, which he describes as “a reflection on death, night, absence and the materiality of the body.” The largest and mercifully last work takes up the entire floor of the vast Rubens Medici gallery and consists of 470 granite tombstones lying higgledy-piggledy on plastic grass surmounted by a giant worm with a human face vaguely resembling Fabre’s. The title is Self-Portrait as the Biggest Worm in the World or, more excitingly in Flemish, Zelfportret als grootste worm van de Wereld. But couldn’t he have at least made a decent 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 fair.
In the evening, he gives a performance in which he supposedly demonstrates his skill as a “master of disguise,” i.e. he dons a cloth cap or a stuck-on beard and wig. This is held in the galerie Daru, which has some fabulous Etruscan sarcophagi and the Winged Victory of Samothrace. When the audience enters, Fabre is hiding behind one of the sarcophagi shouting: “Art kept me out of jail!” Then he runs around for a bit shouting: “Lord protect me from my friends — my enemies I will take care of them!” Finally, he runs up the stairs to the Winged Victory of Samothrace shouting: “Art kept me out of jail” and disappears. I hope I haven’t spoiled the plot.
Seriously, what is the Louvre thinking of? The commissioner in charge, Marie-Laure Bernadac, explained that they want to use contemporary art to attract younger people, and also to liven up some of the less-visited galleries. In this I suppose they might be successful — I’ve been to the Louvre dozens of times but never set foot in the galerie Daru before. But the effect of Fabre’s gimcrack installations in the Dutch and Flemish Old Master rooms is less benign. The whole place begins to feel like some dusty theatrical props storeroom and the great paintings on the walls are reduced to just another form of prop. It is sad. And what is really sad is that in a few years time, the Louvre will probably say: “Oh, we tried having contemporary art and it didn’t work.” Whereas what they should really say is: “Why on earth did we choose Jan Fabre?”
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