Hermitage exhibition Jan Fabre until what date. Not a single animal was harmed: the scandal surrounding the Jan Fabre exhibition in the Hermitage

Of course, the most scandalous exhibits, the most discussed in the press and in society, are the “Carnival of Dead Mutts” and the “Dead Cats Protest” - a hall where, among bright garlands and tinsel, stuffed dogs and cats hang on hooks. To be honest, it looks a little scary, especially dogs. And it’s really interesting that in the spaces of the zoological museum hundreds of stuffed animals don’t look disgusting and don’t cause outrage in anyone. But as an art object (?) it’s already unnerving.

Some of the pieces are surprising, such as the works done with a blue BIC pen. The scale is amazing, but the meaning remains a mystery to me.

But do you know why I really wanted to go to this exhibition? Due to several works carried out in unusual technique. A couple of years ago I talked about what we learned about in Thailand. Several “paintings” by Fabre made from the same materials were exhibited in the Hermitage. And when I found out that the author of the green ceiling made of elytra in one of the halls of the Brussels Royal Palace was still the same Fabre, I definitely needed to see his work.

Inspection we with doctor_watson started with the General Staff.
Italicized text from exhibition plaques.

In 1997, Jan Fabre and Ilya Kabakov staged the performance “Meeting”. Fabre created a beetle costume for himself, and a fly costume for Kabakov. These insects appeared as the creative alter egos of the masters. The choice was not accidental. For Kabakov the fly was important hero, an annoying inhabitant of his communal spaces. Fabre was interested in insects from his youth (...). The artist was impressed that scarab beetles have a more advanced body structure than humans. Human skeleton clad in soft and vulnerable flesh, while in beetles it is hidden under a hard shell. Fabre makes shell suits to perform metamorphosis - creating a superbeing that combines the body of an insect and the mind of a person. Dressed in costumes, the artists talk about art and history.

The installations “Carnival of Dead Mutts” (2006) and “Dead Cats Protest” (2007) can be correlated with the painting of the Flemish masters XVII century by Paul de Vos and Jacob Jordaens "The Cook at the Game Table". The characters in the installations are deceased street animals. Fabre "brings" them back to life by including them in the macabre carnival in the tradition of medieval alchemy, the goal of which was always to bring about the rebirth of an animate or inanimate object.

In the next room are collected early sculptures Fabra.
The artist pays tribute to his entomologist grandfather Jean-Henri Fabre by showing a figure working behind a microscope. In this work, he again talks about loneliness, isolation and detachment as necessary states for an artist. The entire surface of the sculpture is covered with nails. This technique, widespread in the sculptural and installation practice of the 1970s, creates an amazing effect - blurriness, unclear outlines and shapes. The same hero, with his head down and wearing a bowler hat, hung limply above the ground in the work “The Hanged Man II” (1979-2003). Fascination with death permeates all of Fabre’s work.

Silk Curtain entitled "The Road from the Earth to the Stars is Not Paved" (1987), painted with a ballpoint pen as if separates real world from the mystical world of night visions.

Umbraculum is a yellow-red silk umbrella, in Catholicism symbolizing the Basilica Minor, but understood more broadly as a place where a person can hide from the material world, think and work away from everyday life. Jan Fabre fills this image with many meanings, presenting it both as a place outside of time, where the cyclical nature of life and death ceases, and as a world of mysterious spirituality, making one think about the vulnerability of human existence. This is also a tribute modern philosophy, according to which, a person is just an image created by knowledge, unstable and short-lived. Michel Foucault predicted that culture would be freed from this image as a result of a shift in the space of knowledge, and then “man will disappear, like a face drawn on coastal sand disappears.”
The details of the installation, created from bones, are just end-to-end shells that do not hide their emptiness. The new bone “skeleton”, brought outward, is analogous to the shell of a beetle, hiding a boneless body. Once again Fabre says that a person needs some kind of solid “shelter”. The image of the museum in some way can also be interpreted as an umbraculum. The Hermitage, created by Catherine, also “sheltered” the collection works of art and has become a true haven of art these days.

The elytra are larger. All these crutches and strollers are essentially an exoskeleton, like the hard shells of beetles.

Now let's move to the main building of the Hermitage. In the courtyard, the “Man Who Measures the Clouds” raised his hands to the sky. Well, there will always be work for him in St. Petersburg.

The halls of the Hermitage are beautiful even without exhibits :)

The most popular work at the exhibition - this is a man who broke his nose on a painting. A mannequin stands in a pool of fake blood, leaning against Fabre's copy of the most beautiful, perfect male portrait Rogier van der Weyden. If suddenly there is a viewer who doubts the meaning of the work, the title will dispel his doubts: “I allow myself to bleed (dwarf).” The meaning of art is in art itself, its mystery is incomprehensible, no matter how hard you try.

Power.

Halls where the permanent exhibition is mixed with works by Fabre. The works are miniature, bright, and belong to several series. The red background makes it easy to notice “alien” works and at the same time focuses attention on the image.

There are also strange works. "Man with a stick covered in bird glue" (1990), BIC ballpoint pen. The man looking at the image thoughtfully said: “Where is the wand?..”

"The Appearance and Disappearance of Antwerp I". Still the same ballpoint pen + glossy photo paper. To view the image, you need to approach it at an acute angle, then outlines appear from the blue darkness.

The owls, the heroes of the installation “Headless Messengers of Death” (2006), arranged like an altar, fixed their cold gaze on the viewer, with their silent and solemn presence recalling the borderline existence in the stage of posthumous existence, the transition from life to death. This message is reinforced by the winter landscapes of Geisbrecht Leuthens (1586-1656), from the Hermitage collection, which are placed on the sides of the composition.

Here it is, that same cold look!

And finally, the images I came here for.
The dog - a symbol of fidelity, sincerity and obedience - is present in many paintings permanent exhibition hall Fabre's works presented here address this image. Eight green mosaics of dogs surrounded by vanitas (skulls, bones, clocks) are placed among four paintings selected by Fabre from the museum's collection: Adam and Eve by Hendrik Goltzius, The Bean King and Cleopatra's Feast by Jacob Jordens, and Mullet and Procris” by Theodore Romouths.
According to Fabre, their internal psychological balance is disturbed, leading to transgression, which the artist understands as a kind of act of excess, leading to the experience of sin, betrayal and deception. The related theme of vanitas reflects not only the imperfection of the world and its transience, but also the idea of ​​punishment associated with the feeling of guilt. Fabre's two sculptures, created especially for the exhibition, represent the decorated elytra of golden beetles and the skeletons of dogs with parrots in their mouths - a symbol of the "bite of death" that inevitably interrupts the fullness of life. (...) Green color, according to Fabre, is combined with green tones landscapes in the paintings of the hall and symbolizes the loyalty inherent in a dog.

"Loyal sphinxes of metamorphosis and impermanence" (2016)

“Loyalty is guarded by Time and Death” (2016) from the series “Vanity of Vanities, All is Vanity”

The hall was conceived by Nicholas I as the antechamber of the New Hermitage. It was designed to introduce visitors to the history of Russian art. A reminder of this are the relief profile portraits of famous Russian artists, who became Fabre’s source of inspiration for creating new series"My queens." The heroines of the series are women of the 21st century, friends and patrons of Fabre's workshop, whom the artist perceives as muses. The majesty of the full-length portraits made of Carrara marble is offset by Fabre’s ironic trick - he puts jester caps on his models.

The Hall of Flemish Masters, where, in my opinion, Fabre’s works fit most organically. I would even leave this exhibition permanent. The installation clearly shows that the perception of the depicted dead nature and the actual dead nature differ significantly.

On the way to the Knights' Hall, the exhibition continues. How do you like this dress?

It causes some disgust for me: there is no longer a neat orderliness here, the bodies of the beetles are a jumble.

Jewelry precision again appears in the knight's hall.

It is interesting that the shells created for protection here adorn the weapons of attack. Although, maybe this is the point: to use weapons only for protection?

On both sides of the knights new inhabitants of the hall appeared:

In this armor, Fabre, together with Marina Abramovich, staged a performance called “Maiden/Warrior,” in which two knights, clad in armor like beetles in shells, fought endless ritual battles inside a glass display case. “For me, being a knight is the most romantic thing I can imagine,” says Fabre. “There is hope in creativity. It is always faith in hope that the artist creates better world. When I can't improve the world around me or anyone else, I will stop being an artist."

An exhibition of the Belgian artist Jan Fabre “Knight of Despair - Warrior of Beauty” opens at the Hermitage. Stuffed animals and skulls, a video of a living knight in the Knights' Hall and paintings drawn with a Bic pen - "Paper" says that they brought it to Winter Palace And Main Headquarters, what is the “Fabre style” carnival, which will be held at the museum in December, and what provocative works the Belgian became famous for.

The Hermitage exhibits an artist famous, among other things, for his performance of the “world championship” in male and female masturbation

The Flemish artist has been known for 40 years as a director of theater, opera and dance productions, a performance artist and a writer. The works of the grandson of the famous entomologist Jean-Henri Fabre (which is important for understanding the artist’s work) often cause shock and controversy among the public and critics.

In 1978, at the exhibition “My Body, My Blood, My Landscape,” Fabre exhibited paintings written in blood. Later, he made a splash throughout the world with his project “Sky of Admiration”: the artist decorated the ceiling and chandelier in the royal palace in Brussels with one and a half million Thai beetles.

Fabre was and artistic director international festival in Athens, and staged provocative performances such as “Orgy of Tolerance,” which was even somehow brought to Moscow. The production begins with a “world championship” in male and female masturbation. There is also a scene in which pregnant women, sitting on supermarket carts, “give birth” to a grocery store’s assortment, and much more that an unprepared public might call obscenity.

Fabre’s first exhibition in Russia, much less provocative, which the Hermitage 20/21 project wanted to hold almost from the moment of its creation, is addressed to the other side of the artist’s work. In the Hermitage exhibition, Fabre appears as a “warrior of beauty,” and the works brought to St. Petersburg echo masterpieces of world painting.

The artist himself claims that his interest in art awoke in him after a visit to Rubens’ house in Antwerp at the age of 12. Actually, Peter Paul Rubens and Jacob Jordaens are his main sources of inspiration. It was in this direction that the artist and project curator Dmitry Ozerkov worked at the Hermitage.

Dmitry Ozerkov, curator of the exhibition:

This exhibition is different, it is not an invasion. Fabre, a modern artist, comes to our museum not to compete with him, but to bend the knee before the old masters, before beauty. This exhibition is not about Fabre, it is about the energies of the Hermitage in its four contexts: the painting of the old masters, the history of buildings, the cradle of the revolution and the place where the tsars lived.

“Knight of Despair - Warrior of Beauty” is the largest solo exhibition of a contemporary artist in the Hermitage

More than 200 works by Fabre were brought to St. Petersburg. Some of them were made specifically for the Hermitage. The exhibits are exhibited in the Winter Palace, the New Hermitage and the General Staff Building; you will have to look for them among the exhibits of the permanent collection, for example, in the halls of Snyders, Van Dyck and Rubens, in the Knights' Hall and the Great Court. In the General Headquarters, the works are presented in such a way that a dialogue can be traced with Ilya Kabakov’s “Red Carriage” exhibited here: in three courtyards and transformable halls between them.

This scope can perhaps be explained by the fact that Jan Fabre inherits the traditions of classical Flemish painting, which is so important for the main museum of the country and especially for the Hermitage 20/21 project. In addition, in the Hermitage, an artist exhibiting in the museum must make an exhibit especially for them. Fabr brought just such works.

Fabre's works are exhibited as part of the museum's main exhibition

The artist’s inherent kinship with the masters of Flemish painting of the past became the reason for the non-standard hanging of Fabre’s works. Paintings, installations and films by the Fleming are exhibited at equal rights with the permanent collection of the Hermitage and, as the museum believes, “enter into dialogue with recognized masterpieces world art." Fabre had already tried this type of exhibition when he held an exhibition at the Louvre. Rubens was placed in the Parisian hall gravestones, and on them are the life dates of European scientists, renamed insects.

In addition, in the summer Fabre came to the Hermitage to walk through the halls of the museum for a performance in knight’s armor, specially created for him in Belgium, a recording of which is now exhibited here. In the museum you can also see Fabre's armor, which he wore together with Marina Abramovich Virgin/Warrior performance, as well as beetle armor.

Despite the moderate level of provocation of the Hermitage exhibition, visitors have already responded negatively to Fabre’s works

Under a photograph of one of Jan Fabre's works in the halls of the Hermitage - a stuffed rabbit in the teeth of a human skull - on the official Instagram account of the museum flared up controversy over the appropriateness of such works in a museum.

elena0123450 This is what children see?!!!😳🙈 And after that you want a normal child’s psyche?!

zheniya_ya Poor animal 😭 what kind of idiocy? Dry the author and replace it with a bunny 👊

ly_uda Ugh, what a disgusting thing????

mimo__prohodila What kind of tin is this? 😱

babavera823 Abomination!

In conjunction with the exhibition, a Fabre-style carnival and a 24-hour marathon will be held at the General Staff Building

The project “Knight of Despair - Warrior of Beauty” has a serious educational program. In addition to the meeting with the artist, registration for which, unfortunately, is already closed, lectures, screenings, discussions and round tables with the participation of critics, art historians, theatrical figures, musicians. And young artists will create a theatrical performance-interpretation based on the work of Fabre.

As part of the annual New Year's program The Youth Center in the General Staff building will host a carnival “in the style of Fabre”: a parade of masks and a fashion show of costumes created by students.

Towards the end of the exhibition, on the night of March 31 to April 1, an intellectual marathon will be held in the same General Staff Building: the performance of Jan Fabre's Mount Olympus will last 24 hours.

The exhibition will run until April 9, 2017. Entrance to the main building of the museum is 400 rubles, to the General Headquarters - 300 rubles, and a complex ticket - 600 rubles.

Despite protests from animal rights activists, the museum does not intend to dismantle the exhibition.

The exhibition of the Belgian artist Jan Fabre, “The Knight of Despair – Warrior of Beauty,” which opened at the Hermitage a few days ago, caused a wave of indignation in in social networks. Angry Internet users launched the hashtag #shame on the Hermitage, and the leadership state museum I had to give an explanation.

The Jan Fabre exhibition was located not only in the General Staff of the Hermitage, where contemporary art is usually exhibited, but also in the Winter Palace. Stuffed dogs, cats and rabbits hung on hooks were displayed against the background of the paintings Flemish artists XVII century. The curators borrowed this idea from the Louvre, where the Belgian’s installation was adjacent to Rubens’ masterpieces.

Some unprepared visitors were shocked by Fabre's works. St. Petersburg residents and guests of the Northern capital were especially outraged by the works “Protest of Dead Stray Cats” and “Carnival of Dead Mutts.” One of the visitors to the exhibition said that when she and her family saw the stuffed animals, they were horrified.

“People went to admire the paintings, but came across horror.... did not sleep all night...., the children were shocked by what they saw... An exhibition of a pedophile was closed in Moscow, and in the cultural center northern capital, sadists hang the corpses of killed animals on hooks,” shared with her impressions she.

Against the backdrop of the high-profile incident with the Khabarovsk knackers, many considered such an exhibition inappropriate. “The whole of Russia is fighting against the flayers, such a difficult moment for all of us, the Hermitage spits right in our faces by opening an exhibition by Jan Fabre called “the carnival of dead tramps”! Where the corpses of animals are crucified, suspended on hooks, cats, rabbits, dogs with festive caps on head! Where are we going if THIS is now called art?! There are no words," wrote one of the network users.

Despite the protests of animal rights activists and the claims of visitors, the Hermitage does not intend to dismantle the installations of the Belgian artist. “We do not believe that this exhibition somehow violates the rights of animals or those who love them, but quite the opposite,” the head of the department told the Govorit Moskva radio station contemporary art Museum Dmitry Ozerkov.

"Fabre himself has repeatedly told journalists that the dogs and cats that appear in his installations are stray animals that have died on the roads. Fabre is trying to give them new life in art and thus defeat death,” says a message on the Hermitage website.

Jan Fabre(English) Jan Fabre, R. 1958) is a contemporary Belgian artist, sculptor and director. His works were exhibited at the Venice Biennales 1984, 1990, 2003 and documenta 1987, 1992.

Early biography

Jan Fabre born in 1958 in Antwerp, Belgium. His grandfather was the famous entomologist Jean-Henri Fabre (1823-1915). In the 70s he graduated from the Municipal Institute decorative arts and the Royal Academy fine arts and then he began to write his first scripts for the theater and create his first works. In 1977, he “renamed” the street on which he lived as Jan Fabre Street, and installed a sign near his house “Jan Fabre Lives and Works Here.” He painted the most notable series of paintings of this period with his own blood ( "My body, my blood, my landscape", 1978), organizing a performance of the same name from the very process of creation. IN next year the artist again attracted the attention of the general public with the performance “Money”. Fabre collected paper banknotes from visitors, after which he began to crumple them, cut them, walk on them with his feet, etc. At the end of the performance, he burned the bills and wrote the word “Money” using the ashes. Soon, an installation of the same name appeared, made from real money. Also in 1978, Jan Fabre created his first sculpture entitled “I, the Dreamer” (Nid. Ik, aan het dromen). this work represents sculptural image scientist with a microscope. The “legs” of the scientist and the table are made of meat.

Bic-art

Jan Fabre is also known for his works, in which he used ballpoint pens produced by the Bic company. These pens were considered the most common, and Fabre himself commented on his choice: “it was cheap and convenient. I could take them anywhere and steal them anywhere.” The very idea of ​​using ballpoint pens Bic is not a new term Bic-Art used not only in relation to the works of Jan Fabre, but within this “genre” Belgian artist We also managed to offer several original solutions.

In the early 80s, Jan Fabre organized several performances, conventionally united in the series “Ilad of the Bic Art” (Ilad of Bic Art). Ilad here is an anonym of the Dali surname. Perhaps the most notable performance here can be considered “Ilad of the Bic Art, the Bic Art Room” (Ilad of the Bic Art, the Bic Art Room). For three days and three nights, Fabre locked himself in a room where everything was white (including all the dishes and clothes of the artist himself), and he only had Bic pens. In 1990, Fabre presented his new project Tivoli. The artist painted an entire mansion using only ballpoint pens.

Performances and performances

Jan Fabre often turns to theater in his work. His first significant production was called “This is the theater as expected and as foreseen” (1982). For Venice Biennale In 1984, he prepared the play “The Power of Theatrical Stupidity,” during which the actors had to beat each other and themselves. In 1986, Jan Fabre founded the art group Troubleyn, dedicated to theatrical performances. Fabre himself calls this project a performance laboratory of the 21st century.

In 2015, Jan Fabre presented his grandiose production to the audience "Mount Olympus"(“Mount Olympus”). Official slogan: “To glorify the cult of tragedy, a 24 hour performance.” The action lasted 24 hours and involved 27 artists from the Troubleyn group. The play/performance was well received by the public and was repeated in Antwerp in 2016 (from January 30 to 31) (the performance was broadcast live by the French TV channel CultureBox). In addition, "Mount Olympus" was shown in many European countries and Israel.

Sculptures

Jan Fabre began creating his first sculptures back in the 80s. From a conceptual point of view, there are three main themes characteristic of Fabre the sculptor: the world of the insect, human body and war strategy.

In 2002, Fabre created a series of works called "Sky of Delight"(Heaven of Delight). Using almost one and a half million elytra of Thai beetles, the artist painted the ceiling and central chandelier in Hall of Mirrors Royal Palace in Brussels. This may be a reference to Michelangelo's fresco in Sistine Chapel in Rome. The work was commissioned by Queen Paola of Belgium.

Jan Fabre created a number of sculptures, the conceptual meaning of which can be debated. In addition, many of them were created in several copies and located in different places, each time acquiring some new meaning due to external environment. For example, "Man who measures the clouds" first appeared in Ghent in 1998. In the same year, the same sculpture was installed at the Brussels airport, and in 2004 in Antwerp, hometown artist.

In 2008, the Louvre hosted an exhibition under common name "Jan Fabre at the Louvre: Angel of Metamorphosis"(Jan Fabre at the Louvre: The Angel of Metamorphosis). Fabre's "foreign" elements were introduced into the museum space. His works have been featured with classical works masters of the past and, in a sense, complemented reality, introducing elements of chaos and new semantic models accessible to interpretation. In 2016-2017 similar project Jan Fabre organized jointly with the Hermitage ( "Jan Fabre: Knight of Despair - Warrior of Beauty"). Fabre's works in the genre of taxidermy were received ambiguously by the public. The scandal was caused by the artist’s use of stuffed animals and their presence within the walls of a museum such as the Hermitage. For example, the St. Petersburg diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church stated that “such an exhibition should not have been held in the Hermitage,” and the exhibition itself “looks quite shameful.” At the same time, Sergei Shnurov commented on the exhibition: “I went to see Fabre at the Hermitage. And what I saw there: complex but readable rhymes, delicate integration and even respect for the old masters, which, frankly speaking, is rare for modern art. I didn’t see I didn’t see any flogging there, as well as bullying of people, but rather the opposite. In my opinion, the provocativeness of the exhibition by “free fighters for culture” is greatly exaggerated, and artistic merit went completely unnoticed by them."

Jan Fabre: Knight of despair – warrior of beauty November 27th, 2016

I liked it very much!
I will say right away that I am not an art critic or a fan of postmodernism.
But in last days The degree of public indignation reached its peak.
As you know, if the great art critic of our time Milonov himself called the exhibition State Hermitage"spit in the soul to the Russian people", at the same time, according to old tradition, the fighter for morality did not visit the exhibition, then you should definitely go! At the same time, I wanted to find out what the “Russian people” are, but this is secondary.
In fact, the decisive impetus was my mother’s comment: go before the exhibition is closed, it’s unusual, sometimes scary, and at the same time you’ll finally visit the General Staff Building.

So, because of this exhibit, all the fuss flared up

Lord, is this “a spit in the soul of the Russian people”? I think it's a slap in the face Russian citizens- this is an endless lie from TV and the State Duma, but this is just an exhibit in a museum.
The level of education in Russia is surprising. With Milonov, everything is clear - thanks to the good old tricks, he reached the ceiling of his career - sitting his pants in the State Duma. But this mass of my fellow citizens... What were they taught at school, what were they brought up in the family? Can’t they really distinguish a stuffed animal in a museum, a scientific and educational dissection of a giraffe in a zoo, and a beef tenderloin in the meat department from the actions of sick and sick knackers in Khabarovsk? Nude Venus in the Louvre and David on the streets of Florence and St. Petersburg are not pornography, but art. Anatomy and physiology of man in general, and the reproductive system of the body in particular, is not the corruption of minors, but necessary knowledge for the young. So it turns out that syphilis at 17 years old is “it just happened,” and it’s embarrassing to look at Rubens’s paintings - “there are naked women and men there.”
And for the idiots who put the tag #shame on the Hermitage, it is necessary to organize forced excursions to best museum peace, and, for health prevention, in wonderful museum hygiene.

The Hermitage was covered with a wave of indignation, and with each new retelling on the Internet, the description of the exhibition was aggravated by chilling details. And supposedly the Winter Palace was desecrated with the corpses of cats and dogs (although the installation is not shown there), and supposedly they show a crucified cat (although there is no such exhibit at the exhibition), and “children are watching” (the age limit for the exhibition is 16+).

Instagram was filled with the hashtag #shame on the Hermitage, which has already been used more than five and a half thousand times. One of those who “wound up” the public’s nerves (not without benefit for themselves) was singer Elena Vaenga. IN best traditions statements “and you have blacks lynched,” she managed in one post to fight back against the complaints expressed to her earlier about driving in the oncoming lane in reverse and incite people against the Hermitage. It worked: no one is interested in the singer’s offenses anymore!

Not without Vitaly Milonov. In an interview with the radio station “Moscow Speaks,” he called the exhibition “a spit in the soul of the Russian people,” and at the same time unwittingly outlined his position in the dispute between Konstantin Raikin and the Ministry of Culture.

“If we say something against it, the guardians of Russian art like the Raikins will immediately come out and be indignant again, as the only guardians of a high aesthetic feeling, and will complain about us,” said the now State Duma deputy.

He called the exhibits “vulgarity,” “abomination,” and “nonsense,” Jan Fabre himself, “an art bum” and “some kind of experimenter,” and the Hermitage’s decision to hold the exhibition “tyranny” and “complete idiocy.”

The director of the Hermitage, Mikhail Piotrovsky, was forced to explain himself. With his characteristic intelligence, he did not directly point out to visitors their inattention and even said that agitating the public was precisely the goal of the Hermitage.

“The cry in defense of animals is indeed correct, and we woke people up, forced them to talk about it,” he said, meeting with journalists last Friday at the opening of an exhibition of Zakhar Smushkin’s collection. – Jan Fabre talks specifically about the fact that people who say they “love animals” sometimes throw them into the streets, and then they die under the wheels of cars on the roads. Fabre excites with his sharp story public opinion and once again shows that art is actually very complex, and not as primitive as it is understood.”

Piotrovsky promised to tell the townspeople how many stuffed animals are kept in all museums around the world, including mummies from Egyptian tombs.

“In the Hermitage there are stuffed animals of the favorite dogs of the emperors, stuffed animals of the favorite horses of the emperors - I’m not talking about the Kunstkamera and Zoological Museum. Remember how many animals are depicted in the paintings, and these are all killed animals. We just showed a restored painting by van der Helst - a terrible, freshly skinned body of a pig. This is a conversation about Holland at that time, and we tried several times to explain how many different meanings there are.”

At the same time, the director of the Hermitage recalled that, in fact, one of the hallmarks of the Hermitage is the dozens of cats living in its basements: they are taken care of, fed and given medical examinations - so accusing the museum of supporting animal husbandry is absurd and cynical.
http://www.fontanka.ru/2016/11/12/066/

"Carnival of the Dead Mutts", 2006, Belgium, stuffed animals, wooden table, paper.

The main technique of Fabre's exhibition is the dialogue of "old" and "new".
In the background, behind a multi-colored serpentine

The cook is at the table with game. Pauwel (Paul) de Vos, Jacob Jordans. Flanders, around 1670. Hermitage

In the same hall, on the other side
"Protest of dead stray cats", 2007, Belgium, stuffed animals, wooden table, paper.

There's a picture behind the tinsel

Self-portrait. Katharina van Hemessen, Netherlands, 1548. Hermitage

Explanation of installations

Installations with cats and dogs are the most powerful and understandable.
Other exhibits are more symbolic.

Umbraculum, Belgium, 2001, bone, metal wire, aluminum, elytra.
(Umbraculum is a ceremonial umbrella, used in religious processions.)

It turns out that beetle wings are wonderful, deep artistic material.
Like bone slices

In the background is the Resurrection of Christ, Rubens. The painting has not yet been scanned, there is no image. The Hermitage itself only recently learned that it was Rubens.

Fly and Beetle. Jan Fabre's grandfather was an entomologist, which explains the presence of stuffed animals, beetle shells, etc. in Jan's work.
To understand the meaning, you had to watch the movie (I didn’t watch it, so I didn’t understand anything)

In the span of the courtyard - "The Hanged Man II"

The cabin is the “House of Scissors”, and the canvas is “The Road from the Earth to the Stars is Not Paved”
Colored with a ballpoint pen.

Also in big hall there was this thing

The problem with postmodernism is that you will never guess - is it scaffolding for mounting exhibits or an independent exhibit? This does not apply to Fabre - his works are so complex that everything is immediately clear.

I couldn’t find a signature for this thing, but I was embarrassed to ask the grandmother-caretaker:(

Everyone knows anecdotal cases when a cleaning lady swept museum halls, saying, “The people have become uncultured! They threw up pieces of paper right in the center of the museum! And I have to clean up after these assholes!” As a result, the cleaning lady threw exhibits of ultra-fashionable artists into the trash. I’m sure that this is exactly what the hooligan artists wanted; the process of throwing it out was part of their plan. However, this is too subtle for me.

Articles for independent optional reading:
Head of Department the latest trends Russian Museum Alexander Borovsky about the Fabre exhibition and protests against art: http://www.fontanka.ru/2016/11/14/129/
Answers to the most popular questions about stuffed animals: http://www.hermitagemuseum.org/wps/portal/hermitage/what-s-on/museum-blog/blog-post/fabr
The second half of the Fabre exhibition, in classical art gallery Winter Palace: