JAN FABRE. THERE IS NO ESCAPE FROM ART
Start date: 22/03/2019
End date: 28/04/2019
Location: SAMCA - National Gallery of Sofia, Sofia
Curator(s): Joanna De Vos
Solo Exhibition
This is the first solo exhibition of Belgian artist Jan Fabre in Bulgaria. With the support of the Embassy of Belgium in Sofia.
Jan Fabre is one of the most important visual and theatre artists of his generation. Jan Fabre was the first living artist to receive a large-scale solo exhibition at one of the world’s most important museums: the Louvre.
The exhibition ‘There is no escape from art’ at the Sofia Arsenal – Museum for Contemporary Art presents a unique ensemble of performance / film, drawings, photography, and sculptures in which the search for an understanding of the identity of the artist, and the identity of art, are questioned. The self-portrait and the ‘disappearance in many appearances’ of the artist are its starting point. For the first time creations linked to Fabre’s historical exhibition and performance at the Louvre in particular are brought together.
At SAMCA, the performance/film ‘Art kept me out of jail (Homage to Jacques Mesrine)’ is shown as a self-portrait, not of Fabre as an individual, but of the artist in his desire to escape a singular identity. Jan Fabre is a consilience artist and a man of a thousand faces. His performance / film originates in the early eighties, when the artist performed several unannounced street actions as a tribute to Jacques Mesrine, a French gangster who was, for a long time, considered public enemy n°1 in France. The title ‘Art kept me out of Jail’ is the title of a performance by Jan Fabre in New York in the early 1980s. A new interpretation was given to ‘Art kept me out Jail (Homage to Jacques Mesrine)’ in 2008 in the length of 70 meters of the Galerie Daru at the Louvre, during his exhibition ‘L’Ange de la Métamorphose’. He made a new performance: a four hour long cat-and-mouse game with the press and the audience in the so-called “largest, most expensive and best guarded prison in France: the Louvre.” The funny and playful aspects of the performance / film are seen at SAMCA: every now and then we see famous curators and critics, towards whom the artist takes up an ironic attitude during his performance.
Why this tribute to Jacques Mesrine? Jan Fabre says: “In my life there were always two choices: to become a good artist or to become a good gangster.” For Jan Fabre, Jacques Mesrine is the symbol of a passionate personality, someone who tries to survive by means of disguises and succeeds in escaping regulations and institutions. It is never about romanticizing the gangster’s aggression or violence, but about the lust for life, the energy and vitality – his conviction to change society, and his faith in the anarchy of love.
