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拍品专文
'The artist measures: he or she establishes connections-mental, physical, political, and philosophical rapports. I am constantly measuring these types of relationships-that is my duty as an artist. As an artist, I constantly measure the clouds.' (The artist quoted in M. Amy, 'Measuring the Clouds: A Conversation with Jan Fabre', in Sculpture, March 2004, Vol. 23, no. 2).
Jan Fabre's work manifests a profound affection towards humankind - he is an artist who seeks to connect themes of death and resurrection as well as the vanities and follies of human life. The present lot, The Man who Measures the Clouds is a resplendent example from Fabre's wide-ranging oeuvre that places the body at the heart of his approach. As the work gracing the cover of the artist's latest exhibition catalogue at the Kröller-Müller Museum, Evert van Straaten writes: '[The Man who Measures the Clouds] couples the domestic and familiar with the impossible: a man on a small stepladder holds a ruler up to the sky, apparently to measure the clouds. Many artists have occupied themselves with the inconceivability of the cosmos. Piet Mondrian gave shape to this in balanced compositions at a time when the implications of the theory of relativity were just starting to emerge. Fabre lives 100 years later and is now aware that an artist cannot and need not solve the world's problems. And yet, in a single sculpture and using humour he shows that heroism and tragedy go hand in hand in our lives, and that the Sisyphean task of the artist is a metaphor for what human beings try to do in everyday life. It is a hopeful, optimistic view of the human condition: keep striving for the apparently impossible.' (E. van Straaten, 'Jan Fabre: Master of the Paradox', in Jan Fabre Hortus/Corpus, exh. cat., Otterlo, Kröller-Müller Museum, 2011, p. 21).
Jan Fabre's work manifests a profound affection towards humankind - he is an artist who seeks to connect themes of death and resurrection as well as the vanities and follies of human life. The present lot, The Man who Measures the Clouds is a resplendent example from Fabre's wide-ranging oeuvre that places the body at the heart of his approach. As the work gracing the cover of the artist's latest exhibition catalogue at the Kröller-Müller Museum, Evert van Straaten writes: '[The Man who Measures the Clouds] couples the domestic and familiar with the impossible: a man on a small stepladder holds a ruler up to the sky, apparently to measure the clouds. Many artists have occupied themselves with the inconceivability of the cosmos. Piet Mondrian gave shape to this in balanced compositions at a time when the implications of the theory of relativity were just starting to emerge. Fabre lives 100 years later and is now aware that an artist cannot and need not solve the world's problems. And yet, in a single sculpture and using humour he shows that heroism and tragedy go hand in hand in our lives, and that the Sisyphean task of the artist is a metaphor for what human beings try to do in everyday life. It is a hopeful, optimistic view of the human condition: keep striving for the apparently impossible.' (E. van Straaten, 'Jan Fabre: Master of the Paradox', in Jan Fabre Hortus/Corpus, exh. cat., Otterlo, Kröller-Müller Museum, 2011, p. 21).