It speaks for itself that Jan Fabre has personally collaborated in the art integration at the Troubleyn/Laboratorium. The mental process of the works in question stems from the eighties, but receives a new relevance in the context of this project. In one of the offices, Fabre places a long indigo-blue (his ‘Bic blue’) glass table with eight chairs: a table for the knights of. On the tabletop, the word “resistance” has been cut out in the chairs, one notices the capricious eagle’s claw.

In Fabre’s 1987 patterns of thought, the resistance table belongs to a triptych. Next to the table for the Table for the Knights of Desperation, Fabre also had one in mind for the “soldiers of beauty” and also the “counsel of seven wise owls”  (using the words fragility and beauty respectively).

At this moment only the table of resistance has been created. Glass has always inspired Fabre for its poetic characteristics, but it is also one of the most difficult materials to work with. In order to create this work, Fabre collaborated with D&A Lab (Dirk Meylaerts and Bruno Rouffaer), who have achieved a fusion of art and design. For the glass techniques he called upon the help of glass artist Jan Willem Van Zijst. It was only after they attempted various techniques that they came to a satisfactory result. The tabletop consists of float glass where the letters were cut out by a water jet stream. The edges have been melted down slightly to be rounded. Children’s hands and those of the artist, both of which left handprints, have applied the indigo-blue dust. Even though the massive glass legs of the chair could easily carry a human being, this is no usual piece of furniture. The resistance table balances itself on a thin line between design and art, seeing as the cutout forms ensure that the relation to the object is seen as conscious anti-design. Because of this, it is considered not only a table for the Table for the Knights of Desperation , but a reflection of the artist’s impossible position as a knight of desperation. Not only does one find the typical Fabre symbolism further in the table of resistance, but also the belief in the mission of these knights. The indigo-blue indicates the blue hour between day and night where boundaries become obscure and everything is possible, where the eagle’s claw refers to power. There is no power without resistance, no resistance without power. Fabre says himself; “ You discuss art at the table of resistance with your ass sitting on power!” Naturally, the table’s symbol evokes the idea of King Arthur’s legend, which is the aim of the impossible quest where a group of combatants round themselves up. Virtually all artists who have collaborated with the art integration of the Troubleyn/Labroratorium receive their place in one of the empty chairs from Fabre’s table of resistance.

Text by Nadia Sels, art historian at Ghent University.