"Francis Alÿs: Fabiola" Exhbition
The Hispanic Society of America
This event has ended.
Over the last two decades, Francis Alÿs has assembled a significant collection of nearly identical paintings and other reproductions of fourth-century Saint Fabiola, all based on a now-lost original painted in the nineteenth century by the French artist Jean-Jacques Henner.
This obscure work has been assiduously copied by amateurs and professionals alike and has become a popular icon, a phenomenon that, as the artist stated, “indicated a different criterion of what a masterwork could be.”
The exhibition of these images at the Hispanic Society will for the first time comprise Alÿs’s complete group of almost three hundred Fabiola portraits.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a series of public programs including lectures, panel discussions, and gallery talks, as well as special educational initiatives that draw on the relationship between the contemporary project and the Hispanic Society’s permanent collection.
The Alÿs project will be accompanied by a hardcover book that will include background material on Saint Fabiola, as well as essays by art historians, theological historians, and Dia Curator Lynne Cooke. The publication will also catalogue each Fabiola, including detailed descriptions and photographs, many in full-color.
Media
Schedule
from September 20, 2007 to April 06, 2008
Artist(s)
Francis Alÿs et al.