Allegory of Caritas
(An Act of Love)
Jan Fabre

Mucciaccia Gallery is pleased to present “Allegory of Caritas (An Act of Love)”, an exhibition consisting of more than thirty new red coral sculptures and a series of unpublished blood drawings by the artist Jan Fabre.

The exhibition, curated by Melania Rossi, will run from October 13 to January 16, 2023.

On display sculptures of Vanitas skulls, anatomical hearts, crosses and liturgical objects, but also the Yin and Yang and the Celtic Knot of Love, as well as symbols connected to solidarity and humanitarian aid, as well as objects that are reminiscent of folk beliefs or the artist’s personal life.

The sculptures, made of red Mediterranean coral, fiery red concretions that seem to have emerged directly from the abysses of the artistic mind, are a poetic encounter between natural matter and artistic vision.  Moreover, the drawings created by the artist with his own blood, the vital fluid has been used with clever technical mastery to tell the gestation of his son Django.

Art is the privileged tool to represent life, its genesis and its mystery, the opposites, harmony and beauty, that in Jan Fabre’s meticulous research become artworks with a deep allegorical meaning.

There is an ancient bond that links blood to coral. Ovid in the Metamorphoses narrates the mythical birth from Medusa’s blood. The resemblance of the shape of the coral branch to the mesh of blood vessels is clearly visible.

The artist’s vision merges the long symbolic tradition of Coral with the concept of “Caritas”, a Latin word etymologically coming from carus, beloved. It is a concept that exists in all cultures of the world from East to West, uniting all human beings in solidarity and love, as an engine that generates and preserves life.

Raw flesh element links coral sculptures to blood drawings, from which the sweetness of an intimate and personal feeling emerges. The artist expresses the emergence of humankind through his unborn son’s ultrasounds, inviting you to meditate on human vulnerabilities and needs. The personal experience becomes universal in the works of Fabre. They lead the viewer to observe the world as aggregations of meanings that resonate with each other, of stories that hand down and melt over time.

The tension present in his works and the wonder they are able to raise, are an infusion of spirituality that harmonizes contrasts. As the artist says: “Art is like love, it always lead to reconciliation”.

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue edited by Silvana Editoriale, with essays by Melania Rossi, Dimitri Ozerkov, Barbara De Coninck and Sara Liuzzi.