On Saturday, December 21, the exhibition of four new red coral sculptures created by Jan Fabre for the Pio Monte della Misericordia will be inaugurated. They will be permanently displayed in the Institute's chapel. Historically, the Pio Monte has always drawn upon contemporary art in its chapel's design (such as, at the time, the paintings of Caravaggio were introduced, as well as those of Battistello, Luca Giordano, and other artists). Therefore, today, by introducing the works of the maestro Fabre into the chapel, the Pio Monte is pursuing a mission of completing the exhibition in keeping with its own cultural tradition.
From April to September last year, Pio Monte has already proposed the temporary exhibition, in its Chapel, of Jan Fabre's work The Man Holding the Cross as part of the personal exhibition "Red Gold" organized in collaboration with the Capodimonte Museum. The initiative, curated by Melania Rossi, has met with great success and a very strong influx of public determined by the way in which the work has harmonized with the context of the church both from an aesthetic-formal point of view and in a conceptual and spiritual sense.
This is where the idea of permanently setting up a collection of new works by Jan Fabre, specifically conceived for the Institute's Chapel, was born. The Government of the Pio Monte della Misericordia, with the full approval of the Superintendence of Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape for the Municipality of Naples, has identified four existing niches in the side chapels of the temple as the destination of the new works.
Jan Fabre has created a corpus of four sculptures in red coral that represent complex symbolic and iconographic associations, conceived to be placed in a stimulating dialogue with the seventeenth-century paintings already existing in the chapels. The sculptures – each 110 cm high and weighing about 50 kg – are entirely covered in red coral (in the form of small roses, pearls and half pearls and small horns). The choice of coral – a natural material that, although rare and precious, is already widely documented in Neapolitan artistic production – is evidently full of symbolic meanings and implies a spiritual suggestion of energy and vital force.
If since the early 1980s the body in all its forms has been the central object of Jan Fabre's research and a recurring theme in his artistic production, a special place in this conceptual constellation is occupied by the heart – the central element of each sculpture – a symbol, both physical and spiritual, of compassion and universal love, and a representation of the central unity of a wisdom constituted by feeling and thought.
In the sculptures presented today, each of the four hearts depicted here is linked to different elements, but always with a strong symbolic suggestion and in constant relation with the aesthetic and spiritual context of reference. The Purity of Mercy with the lily, attribute of the immaculate purity of Mary and the donkey's jaw as a metaphor directly taken from the "Seven Works of Mercy" by Caravaggio (1606 -1607) to indicate the act of "giving drink to the thirsty". The Freedom of Compassion presents the dove, symbol of the Holy Spirit, and refers to "Saint Paulinus freeing the slave" by Giovan Bernardo Azzolino (1626-1630). The Rebirth of Life with the ivy, figure of the resurrection and eternal life, which envelops the cross, central symbol of Christianity and tree of life, intends to enter into dialogue with the "Deposition" by Luca Giordano (1771). The Liberation of the Passion in which the torch, emblem of enlightenment and hope, and the key, symbol of Saint Peter and the door to the kingdom of heaven, are placed in relation to the “Saint Peter who resurrects Tabitha” by Fabrizio Santafede (1611).
The publication accompanying the exhibition project, published by Electa Mondadori and edited by Melania Rossi, contains texts by Luigi Pietro Rocco di Torrepadula, Gianfranco D'Amato and Vincenzo Liverino, essays by Stefano Causa, Bianca Cerrina Feroni, Dimitri Ozerkov, Melania Rossi, Els Wuyts, as well as collage drawings created by the artist.
The project was made possible thanks to the generosity and love for art of collector Gianfranco D'Amato, and Enzo Liverino, owner of a historic company that works and exports coral.
EDITORIAL TEAM
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