I was wrong in thinking there would be no installation art at Piazza del Plebiscito this winter. They put it up a bit later than they normally do, and I didn't check back. This year's artist is Jan Fabre (b. 1958 in Antwerp, Belgium). He is described as "multidisciplinary"; he is a playwright, stage director, choreographer and stage designer. He also founded the Troubleyn theater company in Antwerp in 1986. Fabre has recently exhibited at the Louvre in Paris. His exhibit at Piazza del Plebiscito consists of five bronze sculptures, some of which have previously been shown individually in public spaces elsewhere. Thus, while the positions of the "parts" in the square no doubt mean something, the "whole" is not technically "site-specifc" (that is, not made specifically and only for this square in Naples, say, in the sense of Rebecca Horns Skulls a few years ago). The five sculptures are:

- The man who measures the clouds (1998);
- The man who gives fire (or...with a light) (1999);
- The man who cries and laughs (2005) ;
- The astronaut who directs the sea (2006); and
- The man who writes on water (2006) .

The pieces are all of brilliantly polished bronze and are life-sized; they are set around the large semicircular piazza in front of the church of San Francesco di Paola; ...cries and laughs (top photo) and ...writes on water (photo, below, left) are in the main portion of the square; ...gives fire (below, center) is off to the side; ...measures the clouds (not shown) is actually atop the far-left half of the colonnade of the church; and ..astronaut who directs the sea (below, right) is not in the square at all, but on a balcony of the Royal Palace, which faces the square. Currently (as you can see in these photos), the entire display is cluttered by scaffolding and bleachers being set up for the New Year's Eve celebration.

I say "clutter," but maybe it's part of the display. You never know with installation art. In the pompous vocabulary of art critics (cue professorial throat-clearing...ahem...), such displays are meant to interact with the viewing public and invite comments, comments that then become part of the "extended discourse" of the work, itself. In the case of Fabre's display, the morning after it went up, there was a single car parked directly next to the centerpiece, The man who cries and laughs; it is in the center of the square and shows a man atop a pedestal, facing the royal palace. His facial expression, as the name implies, shows laughter and crying at the same time. You are invited to interept that as you wish. (That is, he is holding a book in his left hand, so maybe he's a student or, even worse, a scholar. He is staring at the grand Royal Palace and smiling at the centuries of culture therein contained; he is also crying because Naples is in such a mess. That sort of thing. That is only my own "extended discourse." Feel free to extend your own. Maybe we can throw a few punches.) The lone car in the morning hours was intrepreted by passers-by in various ways: (1) It's part of the work; (2) It's the world's cleverest example of illegally parking a car, since the owner knows that people will think the vehicle is part of the work and leave it alone.

(Imagined conversation between two traffic cops in the square): - "What in the...?! He can't leave that car there!" - "Luigi, maybe it's part of the sculpture. If we ticket or tow it, we look like idiots." -"Do I look like an art critic to you? Call someone."

A few hours later, the car was gone. That doesn't necessarily mean that it was not part of the sculpture. Maybe it was a piece of mobile extended discourse. The exhibition runs through Jan 18, but these displays sometimes run past the announced closing date. There was no printed explanatory material for this year. Here extendeth the discourse.