JAN FABRE. PIETAS

Start date: 01/06/2011

End date: 16/10/2011

Location: Nuova Scuola Grande di Santa Maria della Misericordia, Venice

Solo Exhibition

Organised to coincide with the 54th edition of the Venice Biennale, the exhibition entitled PIETAS will feature five large marble sculptures by the Flemish artist Jan Fabre, including an unprecedented reinterpretation of Michelangelo’s Pietà.Curated by Giacinto Di Pietrantonio and by Katerina Koshina and promoted by the GAMeC – Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art, Bergamo, by the State Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki, and by the Kunsthistorisches Museum of Vienna.

“I wanted the visitors to be able to enter a golden ceiling like they would a golden heaven. Like you have temples with golden ceilings and domes. I wanted to reverse that. I wanted the audience to enter my work in little felt slippers, a little tribute to the work of Joseph Beuys. It’s a ritual: putting on those slippers, walking differently, walking silently. You became part of the work… With this installation I wanted to create a sort of spiritual space, a battlefield of beauty. A utopian space where all these spiritual entities and religions meet. Inspired by and paying tribute to the most sexy part of our body: the brain”. – Jan Fabre 

Nuova Scuola Grande di Santa Maria della Misericordia
Sestiere Cannaregio 3599
Fondamenta della Misericordia
Venice