Article translated by Amritee Mahabir

Jan Fabre is one of the most important and extraordinary Belgian contemporary artists, he recently appeared to be particularly bothered by the Pharaoh exhibition declaring: “Personally, I believe in small projects made for few people. Art is not democratic. It is like being on the beach, a crowd of ten thousand people arrives and you no longer enjoy it”. This is a somewhat contradictory statement for the artist whose origin is Antwerp, given that in recent years he presented his own works at the most important Biennale’s and until 7^th July will be presenting his exhibition Jan Fabre at the Louvre, The Angel of Metamorphosis in Paris in which the world of antique French art has given him the go ahead to set up thirty of his works in the rooms dedicated to antique northern European masterpieces. What’s more is that Bozar, the Centre for fine arts in Brussels proposes Jan Fabre, borrowed time until 18^th May a jam-packed event dedicated to his theatrical activities. One hundred and thirty of his works including designs and maquettes, will be exposed next to 120 photographs of his theatrical productions, taken by famous artists of such acclaim as Robert Mapplethorpe and Helmut Newton.

Set designer, choreographer, visual artist, theatre-maker, video artist and publisher, but above all, “consilience artist” as he loves to define himself – Fabre explores the world through the most disparate techniques and desperately believes in the power of the imagination.

He is one of the most significant Belgian artists and on the international scene has expressed himself with a vast array of artistic disciplines since the end of the seventies. Fabre manages to go flexibly from one discipline to another moving away from the archetype of “specialist” by now so typical in our culture, and obtaining in each of these a constant high tension, indicator of the quality, and theoretical and formal strength in his artistic journey. In this way he goes from being a creator of images, performer, director, set designer and therefore, artist in the correct sense of the word.

In each of his multiple fields of creative expression, Fabre always puts the body at the centre of his research, intended as a physical reality and mental dimension. The extreme exploration and bare bodies that is often scandalous, is linked to the concept of metamorphoses, which Fabre takes from his passion for hereditary sciences from his entomological great grandfather, Jean-Henry Fabre. In virtue of each passage in the field of natural cycles becoming leader of his shows, it is composed of the all-bearing frame of a usually complex structure. The same passion for insects is omnipresent in his works as he unites this central theme other than functioning as strong surrealist poetry, in which this dream like world, madness and irrationality maintain a dominant role.

Human beings and their transience is the core theme of Fabre’s artistic works through the glorification of the cycle of birth-life-death-rebirth. Fabre considers death as the essence of being alive, the space that is no longer alive and in which art laughs at life. In this vision, the body is for the artist the maximum representation of the flow of one’s life cycle. As already stated, Fabre develops this concept of rebirth and of surpassing limits through insect imagery which fill his fantasies and his artistic production, not without educated references to the Flemish vanitas executed between the XVI and XVII centuries. Looking at his works, as with many choreographies by Fabre, the public has the impression of observing the work of a Flemish artist above all, Bosch and Brieghel but also Rubens and Van Gogh who influenced Fabre since he was a young lad.

Passages are therefore central in his works – from visible and invisible, day and night, life and death, immanence and transcendence – and the figures that represent this and symbolise them. Jan Fabre’s work reunites various aspects of human creation with excellence: science, technology, and art. As if he were a scientist he collects data that determines the essence of his creation, the technician give the shape while the result is the artistic expression that Fabre decides to use.