Sanguis sum

Friday April 18, 2008 in Paris
With the two lambs of 'Sanguis sum' (2001), Jan Fabre initiates his golden period. The installation consists of a pair of gold-plated lambs with party hats, one standing and the other dead. It is typical for our age where the 'concept' has completely replaced the image - at least in the realm of the plastic arts - that the French philosopher Michel Onfray* manages to write a substantial text about this work without even one word about the sculptures as such: despite the gold, they are not precisely masterpieces of animal sculpting. When Jan Fabre would have used two real lambs, the text would apply as well: or rather, equally be besides the question. According to Michel Onfray, 'Sanguis sum' is a direct reference to the Van Eyck brothers’ 'Adoration of the Mystic Lamb'. Why? Not every lamb, even with the title 'Sanguis sum', refers to 'Adoration of the mystic Lamb'. Jan Fabre points to the fact that there are two lambs, just like there are two brothers van Eyck. But there are more brothers than the Van Eycks: apart from Jan Fabre and his dead twin brother, there are also the Marx Brothers, who have certainly also something to do with party hats. Even when we admit that the lambs refer to the Van Eyck Brothers or to the Mystic Lamb, how do we have to understand the master's comment that we are dealing with a metaphor for the artist? Michel Onfray gives free rain to his philosophical imagination: Jan Fabre's cogito would be 'I bleed, therefore I am', which does certainly not apply to Jesus, after all the real lamb. At the end of his comment, Michel Onfray concludes: 'Jan Fabre brings an allegory of the death of art through reversing the situation.... Art is death, but, by saying this, the artist shows how alive it is....' Well....