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entry Jan 2009
Installation Art 2008/9 I spoke too soon here
when I said
there would be no installation art at Piazza
del Plebiscito this winter. They put it up a bit later than
they
normally do, and I didn't check back. This year's artist
is Jan Fabre (b. 1958 in Antwerp, Belgium). He is described as
"multidisciplinary"; he is a playwright, stage director,
choreographer and stage designer. He also founded the Troubleyn theater
company in Antwerp in 1986. Fabre has recently exhibited at the Louvre
in Paris. His exhibit at Piazza del
Plebiscito
consists of five bronze
sculptures, some of which have previously been shown individually in
public
spaces elsewhere. Thus, while the positions of the "parts" in the
square no doubt mean something, the "whole" is not technically
"site-specific" (that is, not made specifically and only for this
square
in Naples, say, in the sense of Rebecca
Horn's Skulls a few years
ago). The five sculptures are:The man who measures the clouds (1998); The man who gives fire (or...with a light) (1999); The man who cries and laughs (2005);The astronaut who directs the sea (2006); and The man who writes on water (2006).  The pieces are all of brilliantly polished
bronze and are
life-sized; they are set around the large
semicircular piazza in front
of the church of San
Francesco di Paola (background, photo on right); ...cries and laughs (photo, above)
and ...writes on water (photo,
right) are in the main portion of the square; ...gives fire (below, left) is
off to the side; ...measures the
clouds (not shown) is actually atop the far-left half of the
colonnade of the church;
and ...astronaut who directs the
sea (below, right) is not in the square at all, but on a
balcony of the
Royal Palace, which faces the square. Currently (as you can see in
these photos), the entire display is cluttered by scaffolding and
bleachers being set up for the New Year's Eve
celebration. I say "clutter," but maybe it's part of the
display. You never know
with installation art. In the pompous vocabulary of art critics (cue
professorial throat-clearing...ahem...),
such displays are meant to interact with the viewing public and invite
comments, comments that then become part of the "extended discourse" of
the work, itself. In the case of Fabre's display, the morning after it
went up, there was a single car parked directly next to the
centerpiece, The man who cries and
laughs; it is in the center of the square and shows a
man atop a pedestal, facing the royal palace. His facial expression, as
the name implies, shows laughter and crying at the same time. You are
invited to interpret that as you wish. (That is, he is holding a book
in
his left hand, so maybe he's a student or, even worse, a scholar. He is
staring at the grand Royal Palace and smiling at the centuries of
culture therein contained; he is also crying because Naples is in such
a mess. That sort of thing. That is only my own "extended discourse."
Feel free to extend your own. Maybe we can throw a few punches.) The
lone car in the morning hours
was interpreted by passers-by in various ways: (1) It's part of the
work; (2) It's the world's cleverest example of illegally parking a
car, since the owner knows
that people will think the vehicle is part of the work and leave it
alone.(Imagined conversation between two traffic cops in the square):  -"What in the...?! He can't leave that car there!" -"Luigi, maybe it's part of the sculpture. If we ticket or tow it, we look like idiots." -"Do I look like an art critic to you? Call someone." A few hours later, the car was gone. That doesn't necessarily mean that it was not part of the sculpture. Maybe it was a piece of mobile extended discourse. The exhibition runs through Jan 18, but these displays sometimes run past the announced closing date. There was no printed explanatory material for this year. Here extendeth the discourse.
to other items on
installation art in Naples: here
, here , here
and here. |