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The major exhibition Jan Fabre. Spiritual Guards, sponsored by the City of Florence, spreads between Forte di Belvedere, Palazzo Vecchio and Piazza della Signoria. It is one of the most complex and complicated exhibitions in Italian public spaces created by the Flemish artist and theater creator. For the first time ever a living artist engages simultaneously in three places of great historical and artistic value. On display there are a hundred works created by Fabre between 1978 and 2016: bronze sculptures, installations of beetles shells, works in wax and films documenting his performances. Fabre also presents two new works, especially designed for this occasion. The preview was an extraordinary visual impact event with strong symbolic connotations. From the morning of 15 April, in fact, two Fabre's bronze sculptures have become part of the open-air museum that is Piazza Signoria. One of these, Searching for Utopia, exceptionally large, is in dialogue with the equestrian statue of Cosimo I, Renaissance masterpiece by Giambologna; while the second, The man who measures the clouds (American version, 18 years older), is raised on the battlements, or railing, the Palazzo Vecchio, between the copies of the David of Michelangelo and Donatello's Judith.

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