"I let myself drain"

Friday April 18, 2008 in Paris
Jan Fabre @ Le Louvre
Take 'I let myself drain', (2006) a life-sized wax figure, not unworthy of a place in Madame Tussauds, banging his head against the painting 'Portrait of a Magistrate' by Rogier van der Weyden with blood dripping from his nose and pooling on the floor. It would testify to some self-knowledge, were it not for the imposture of deeming himself so important as to let the whole world know that he is simply not able to equal the old masters. On occasion of the installation of this masterpiece in the Museum in Antwerp in ('Homo Faber', 2007), Michael Savage writes: 'The sheer, unfounded arrogance of putting some one of Fabre's meagre talents alongside these giants is unforgivable; allowing him to obscure them is criminal'.