Two Self-Portraits Donated. From Jan Fabre’s Chapters
A Belgian artist whose figurative work is more inclined to provoke rather than to appease
The Uffizi Gallery's vast collection of self-portraits has been enriched by two self-portraits of Belgian artist Jan Fabre, which he has donated to the Museum.
Draughtsman, sculptor, choreographer and set designer, this 54-year-old Belgian artist of international renown now has his place in the Uffizi's collection of self-portraits thanks to the initiative of Giovanna Giusti, the director of the Uffizi's nineteenth Century and Contemporary Art Department, and of Nicole d'Huart and Damien Wigny, two people who fell in love with Florence and the art of Tuscany and put Ms. Giusti in touch with a number of Belgian artists, including Jan Fabre.
In 2010 Jan Fabre conceived a series of eighteen self-portraits (which he called "Chapters"), moulded in wax with bloodstain marbling and then cast in bronze for display in museums or even in the open air, in the woods. The sole common denominator in the series is the artist's face, enriched and transformed by spectacular ramifications, horns, mythological memories, or donkey ears, constituting a fully-fledged anthropomorphic Bestiarium.
The works the artist has chosen to donate to the Uffizi are "Chapters" VIII (with ram's horns) and XI (with donkey ears) from his series of self-portraits.
Thanks to this donation, Jan Fabre becomes the thirty-fourth Belgian artist representing his country in the Uffizi’s collection with Rubens, Van Dyck, Sevin, Ensor and de Bruyckere.
The donation confirms the bond that exists between the Belgian artist and the Uffizi Gallery.
