Sanguine / Bloedrood

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    During the cultural city festival Antwerp Baroque 2018. Rubens Inspires, the M HKA, the Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp, juxtaposes the spirit of the baroque masters with the vision of contemporary top artists. With the exhibition Sanguine/Bloedrood (Blood Red), curator Luc Tuymans aims to overwhelm the visitor by placing key works from the baroque of, among others, Francisco de Zurbarán and Caravaggio, in dialogue with works by classical contemporary masters, such as On Kawara and Edward Kienholz, as well as new works by contemporary stars such as Zhang Enli, Takashi Murakami, Michaël Borremans, Sigmar Polke and Tobias Rheberger. 

    antwerpenbarok2018.be

    Jan Fabre

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    (c)Angelos bvba
    Window Performance, 1977
    Jan Fabre
    Performance , 07:00:00

    Antwerp, Offerandestraat

    Already during his training as window dresser at the City School of Arts and Crafts the young Jan Fabre is searching for the limits of the shopwindow. Here the artist himself takes the place of the mannequin. The snails, painted with the Belgian tricolour, are both tribute to and critique of the slow but united Belgium. 

    "GC In 1977 you created a work called Window Performance (No. 6), which lasted seven hours and was set in a shop window. What actions did you perform in this greatly reduced space?
    JF Well, just lying naked with the snails crawling over my body. And the snails were in the colours of the Belgian flag with the golden crowns on top. In these years I had the feeling I was living in a slow country where in my eyes little was happening and time was crawling like a snail. And of course the performance was also about the different perception and experience of time. The seven hours represented the cycle of repetition and through repetition purification."

    (Celant, G. Jan Fabre. Stigmata. Action & Performances 1976-2013. Skira, 2014, p.173)

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