(born in Belgium in 1958)
Chapitre IV, 2010, signed and numbered under the base, golden bronze with slate base, 71 x 40 x 40 cm

This work is number 7 from an edition of 8 examples numbered from 1 to 8 and IV examples numbered from I to IV.

Provenance:
European Private Collection

Literature:
B. Verschaffel, Jan Fabre. Chapitre I-XVIII. Cires & Bronzes,
Galerie Guy Pieters, Paris 2010, p. 54-55, with ill.

Fairy tales and myths teach us that any metamorphosis involves a risk. There is a risk that this transformation will reveal an indelible truth. The great secret of man is that he is in fact an animal among animals. The masquerade of culture, the complex rituals of meals and weddings, and in particular funeral rituals, still persist in staging the opposite. However, the fact remains that... there is a provisional solution to keep this truth at bay: play your own role. There are circumstances, such as collective
rituals or intimate games, where men climb into the skin of an animal. Certainly, it is only a game - and therefore not true - but still. What happens when it turns out that you play “for real”, when you really start eating carrion, hunting, fighting, reproducing, killing and dying, just like animals do?
B. Verschaffel, Un dieu est une multitude d‘animaux, in Jan
Fabre Chapitres I-XVIII, Galerie Guy Pieters, Paris 2010, o.54