Francis Alÿs' Fabiola at LACMA, Los Angeles, until 29 Mar

Exhibition Description:

The exhibition is commissioned by Dia Art Foundation and will be curated by Lynne Cooke. Francis Alÿs: Fabiola was initially installed at the Hispanic Society of America in northern Manhattan last year.

Francis Alÿs, is a Belgian artist who relocated to Mexico City in the early 1990s, and has assembled a significant collection of nearly identical paintings and other depictions of fourth-century Saint Fabiola over the last two decades.

All of these paintings are based on a renowned, but lost, portrait by nineteenth-century French academic painter Jean-Jacques Henner. This much-venerated image has been so carefully copied by amateurs and professionals alike that it has become a popular icon, that the artist feels "indicates a different criterion of what a masterwork could be."

Alÿs gathered these portraits from flea markets, antique shops, and private collections throughout Europe and the Americas. His collection offers a window onto aesthetic, sociological, and theological values over the past century and more.

The exhibition consists of Alÿs's group of more than three hundred Fabiola portraits, all of them copies of a lost original: most are paintings, and there are several versions in needlepoint, wood relief, and other materials as well.

Full Contact Details:

Ahmanson Building