In both works we can recognizes the artist's self-portrait, in the double role of a knight and guardian, as a link between earth and sky, between natural forces and spirit. For a history of art that has also put at the disposal of political and economic power - like that of Piazza Signoria with its marble giant (David, Hercules, Neptune) and its biblical representations, mythological or genius loci (Judith, Perseus, Marzocco) - Jan Fabre opposes an art that is meant to represent and embody the power of imagination, the artist's mission as "spiritual guard". And it does so in a square which since the Renaissance has been used mostly as agora and figurative stage, which has become a paradigmatic place of the relationship between art and public space, and where you have configured in an exemplary way the symbolic-spectacular feature the modern monument. Also from April 15 are visible in Palazzo Vecchio a series of sculptures that interact with frescoes and artifacts preserved in several rooms of the museum of the palace path, in particular those of Eleonora, together with the Audience Hall and the Sala dei Gigli. Among the works on display also a large globe (2.50 m in diameter) covered entirely by the iridescent beetles carapace, whose shape and size have been inspired precisely by the famous globe preserved in the Hall of geographical maps, sixteenth century work by Ignazio Danti.
On 14 May, will open the exhibition at Forte di Belvedere, where between the ramparts and the building will be presented about sixty works in bronze and wax, as well as a number of films that focus on some historical performance artist. The curators Melania Rossi and Joanna De Vos, along with Sergio Risaliti, artistic director of the project, they chose the Forte Belvedere as a thematic nucleus of the exhibition Jan Fabre. Spiritual Guards, for its spatial and historical features. A fortification that over time has served to defend Florence from external threats, but also to protect the Medici family in the city riots times. A place of defense from the outside and from the inside so, suggesting a path through life, ambitions and anxieties of the powerful Medici lords and alluding to opposing perceptions and human feelings like those of control and abandon, but also needs and opposing desires as those of armed protection and spiritual enthusiasm, so deeply rooted as to influence the architectural forms and the configuration of the countryside. Especially here at the Forte Belvedere, where there is a clear need to strengthen themselves in the awareness of being still helpless.
To communicate this ambivalence, beyond history, making up all the experience and the human vitality, there will be two sides of sculptures formed by seven bronze beetles placed in lookout points of the fort and a series of artist's self-portraits full length - all a golden glow that reflects the surrounding landscape as a spiritual aura - that will populate the corners of the ramparts outside the building, surrounding the Villa Medici.