Wandelend Blad

Jan Fabre's early oeuvre can be roughly divided into two: works with insects and works made with a ballpoint. The present lot merges both aspects. The seemingly endless task to fill a sheet of paper of the current size with just a Bic-ballpoint was regular routine for Fabre, even covering an entire small castle in Belgium with such drawings. From a distance, the blue plane seems just that, until the viewer steps forward and the separate lines disentangle themselves, making it clear that the plane is not evenly filled and that the artist through the medium used has not only coloured the sheet, but has also created a structure because of the scraping on the sheet.
In this vast blue sea, Fabre has placed two delicate walking leaves in the centre. He was already fascinated by the world of arthropods when he was a teenager, having set up a laboratory in his parental backyard, experimenting with spiders and insects and trying to give them a second life, which he has also done in the present lot.
Though apparently different in matter and meaning, for Fabre the ballpoint and the insects are both metaphores for death. Insects are a forebode for death. The insects used in his works, seem very much alive, but really are not. When they are alive, they often eat the flesh of dead animals, their presence thus announcing the presence of death. The thread between ballpoint and death is more abstract: it signifies the Hour Blue: the transcience between night and day, life and death. It is the denominator for change and dying is the most progressive change imaginable.