CAPELLA DEL PIO MONTE DELLA MISERICORDIA
Four red coral sculptures were created for the Pio Monte della Misericordia, 2019
THE FREEDOM OF COMPASSION
THE PURITY OF MERCY
THE RESURRECTION OF LIFE
THE LIBERATION OF PASSION
THE FREEDOM OF COMPASSION
PASSAGE FROM DIMITRI OZERKOV’S TEXT
A dove with a branch in its beak firmly grips a cardiac aorta in its claws. The heart is bound in chains that might be stopping its beat or either preventing it from bursting. The chain seems to be made of spiky thorns forming a crown. The dove with the branch in its beak might just have landed on the heart, as it has not yet folded its wings against its body. Or could it be perhaps menacingly flapping them to scare enemies away from the heart as if that was its nest? The heraldic exactitude in the definition of each feather bestows a majestic and severe quality to the animal’s wings, extended as those of a Christian pelican, ready to feed its young with its flesh and blood. The dove shelters, saves and protects a sensitive devout heart, bound by the chain of fidelity.
A dove with an olive branch in its beak has been known as a symbol of salvation and liberation since the end of World War II, when in 1949 Pablo Picasso drew his famous dove for the World Congress for Peace. Picasso’s and Fabre’s doves share the same iconography, rooted in mythological subjects and figurations, where the dove, as opposed to the falcon and the crow, is always a bearer of good tidings and peace.
THE RESURRECTION OF LIFE
PASSAGE FROM BIANCA CERRINA FERONI’S TEXT
Fabre, of course, in his “Resurrection of Life” cannot detach himself from the man, so he looks towards the divine while digging inside his body; he takes a part of it, the most visceral, the deepest: the heart. This organ is one of the main components of his vocabulary. Emblem of the endless love for God, and, in the more pagan version, of love in general, it is a visual symbol at the same time very personal and common to all human beings. Fabre speaks of the body with just one of its parts, he makes it expressive, not representative. Indeed, the heart expresses both the pain of passion, underlined by the cross covered in tiny roses symbolizing the drops of blood he shed, and the yearning for immortality, represented by the ivy. The red coral of the Mediterranean, which according to a legend was born from Medusa’s blood, isolates him and protects him like armour in his raw nakedness. As well as being a symbol of fertility that conjures up the idea of rebirth, the many little horns packed together on the ivy leaves give an organic, live appearance to the work, almost as if it were muscle tissue.
THE PURITY OF MERCY
PASSAGE FROM MELANIA ROSSI’S TEXT
I WHO CARRY THE LOFTY BANNER OF LOVE, HAVE FROZEN HOPES AND BURNING DESIRES:
AT ONE AND THE SAME TIME I TREMBLE, FREEZE, BURN, AND SPARKLE,
I AM DUMB, AND I FILL THE SKY WITH ARDENT SHRIEKS. MY HEART THROWS OFF SPARKS, WHILE MY EYES DISTIL WATER;
AND I LIVE AND DIE, LAUGH AND LAMENT;
THE WATERS REMAIN LIVING, AND THE FIRE DOES NOT DIE, BECAUSE I HAVE THETIS IN MY EYES AND VULCAN
IN MY HEART…
GIORDANO BRUNO, THE HEROIC FRENZIES
In his sculpture The Purity of Mercy, Fabre chooses to highlight an element of Caravaggio’s large canvas: the donkey’s jawbone from which Samson is drinking. “To give drink to the thirsty” is the Work of Mercy represented in this scene in the painting. The “strong, victorious, triumphant jawbone of a dead ass”, with which Samson killed one thousand Philistines, provides the fertile base for the sculpture. On this base is an anatomical heart, out of which a lily plant blooms. The work extends upwards, getting lighter and lighter. It ascends three levels, starting from a concave and stiff object, it takes blood and becomes beating flesh, to then blossom into delicate and fresh flowers.
THE LIBERATION OF PASSION
PASSAGE FROM ELS WUYTS’S TEXT
With his installation The Liberation of Passion, situated in the niche next to the grotesque painting by Fabrizio Santafede, Jan Fabre transforms worldly indignation into glorious resistance. In times of extreme sadness and pain, his magical imagination is like a fire turning anger into strength. In times of conflict and indifference, at Pio Monte della Misericordia Fabre keeps our love for beauty and faith in human beings alive.
“I AM THE SCARECROW WITH A HEART AND THE BLACK CROWS OF ART PECK AT AND EAT PIECES OF MY HEART UNTIL ALL THAT REMAINS OF IT IS A THROBBINGINVISIBLE ORGAN, PASSIONATE AND BRAVE.”
JAN FABRE, NACHTBOEK, ANTWERP, 16 OCTOBER 1995