Jan Fabre
It is difficult to get a handle on an artist of many talents. The Belgian Jan Fabre (1956) is just such an artist. In the early eighties he drives the Amsterdam theatregoers to distraction by having them watch, for eight hours, a show that is not a show, a dance that is not a dance, a performance that does not follow any of the applicable rules. He offers it as an investigation into ”the diversity of the body in all its productions”. Because he cuts straight through all the codes and conventions, he scares away the traditional theatre audience, but is immediately accepted in the art world. Apparently.
After various theatre productions he enters the ‘real’ field of the visual arts. He begins to draw. He compares the discipline with speaking, ”a directness of enlightened stammering”. In his view it borders on pure thinking. Because he is fascinated by the hour at which the night surrenders itself to the day (”Hour of the Blue”), he draws with a blue, Bic ballpoint pen. He does not restrict himself to sheets of white paper, he goes much further: entire buildings are worked on with his blue pen strokes. He hereby again breaches a code. The average viewer is only familiar with the medium, certainly at that time, in the late eighties, from dimly lit print collections and galleries. The sculptures that he produces after this are disturbing in a different way. Initially, they are life-size articles of clothing with the human figure missing, built up from thousands of beetles (his love for insects is said to come from his great-grandfather, who was an entomologist). Fabre places them emphatically in the space and lights them so that the wing-cases shine and sparkle and the attention of the viewer is concentrated. He not only makes people the subject of his sculptures, but also animals. Starting in 2000 he begins a series of beetle-clad skulls with animals in their mouths. Once again the artist is provoking fierce reactions, because he is using theatrical means that are not compatible with the familiar medium, but also because he does not baulk at unashamedly combining the gruesome and the beautiful with each other.
Jan Fabre is an unadulterated romantic. He is dissatisfied with the time in which he is living and translates this discontent into work that reacts against or detaches itself from contemporary morality. This sounds serious and probably uncomfortable, but he does it with an enormously well-developed sense of beauty and of poetry. He is, furthermore, used to putting things into perspective. A couple of years ago he produced ‘Searching for Utopia’, a huge bronze statue on the Belgian coast. The likeness of himself is sitting on the back of a big, strapping tortoise. A modern variation of Peter Pan or Nils Holgerson. Comical and characteristic. Searching for a better world in a poetic, somewhat naïve and theatrical manner.
Because of this latter, the sweeping gesture or gesture for the sake of effect, the Dutch art lover, immersed in Calvinism, could feel slightly uneasy; however it certainly ensures that the ‘message’ reaches its intended target.
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”There is a battle to be fought, but it is a poetic battle; to defend the vulnerability of beauty and mankind.” Jan Fabre, 2005
(c) Rob Perrée 2006
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JAN FABRE
1958, Antwerpen
Lives and works in Antwerp.
He has showed his fine art in a.o. Paleis voor Schone Kunsten, Brussels (2005); SMAK, Gent (2002); Biennial, Istanbul (2001/1992); Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb (1999); Palazzo Grassi, Venice (1997); Guggenheim, New York (1997); Museum voor Moderne Kunst, Antwerpen (1995); Ludwig Museum, Budapest (1995); De Vleeshal, Middelburg (1995); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (a.o.1995); Hong Kong Art Center (1993); Documenta, Kassel (1992/1982); Kunsthalle, Basel (1992); Kunstverein, Hannover (1992); Paleis voor Schone Kunsten, Brussels (1990); Museum Overholland, Amsterdam (1989); Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst, Gent (a.o.1985); Biennial Venice (1984).
Selected bibliograpy
2005
Jan Fabre. Totem. Cat. City of Leuven;
Intersezioni. Cragg/Fabre/Paladino. Cat. Al Parco Archeologico di Scolacium;
2004
Geneviève Drouhet. Transgression. Un traject dans l’oeuvre de Jan Fabre (1996-2003). Paris ;
2002
Jan Fabre. Heaven of Delight. Cat. Palais Royal, Brussels;
Jan Fabre. Gaude Succurrere Vitae. Cat. Musée d’Art Contemporaine, Lyon ;
Stefan Hertmans. Engel van de metamorfose. Over het werk van Jan Fabre. Amsterdam;
2001
Jan Fabre. Umbraculum. Cat. Fondation Lambert, Avignon;
1999
Een Ontmoeting/Vstrecha. Ilya Kabakov & Jan Fabre. Cat. Kunstvereniging Diepenheim;
Jan Fabre. Atlas of Battles. Strategy and Tactics. Cat. Deweer Art Gallery, Ottegem;
Jan Fabre. Engel und Krieger. Strategien und Taktiken. Cat. Städtische Galerie, Nordhorn;
1995
Jan Fabre. Der Leimrutenmann. Cat. Galerie der Stadt Stuttgart;
Jan Fabre. Passage. Cat. Museum voor Moderne Kunst, Antwerp;
Jan Fabre. Wolt iemandt mir dasselb verkeren. Cat. Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam;
1992
Jan Fabre. Zeichnung-Skulptur-Zeichnung. Cat. Kunstverein, Hannover;
1989
Jan Fabre. Tekeningen, Objecten & Modellen. Cat. PMMK. Museum voor Moderne Kunst, Oostende.