BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES:
Born in Antwerp in 1958, Jan Fabre is a drawer, sculptor, playwright and stage (drama and opera) director, choreographer and stage designer of European renown.
He studied in the Decorative Arts Institute and Royal Academy of Fine Arts. In his early years, he was a decorator, set and costume designer; in 1976-81, active in the field of performance art. At the time he too wrote a series of plays. His intellectual furnishing includes an interest in insects - inherited from a grand-grandfather, a renowned entomologist. Observing the microcosm of insects has become a source of inspiration for Fabre, as was the case with the hour of the blue concept, again, the great-grandpa''s (night giving up the space to the daylight). A series of giant drawings has thus been conceived, the material being artificial silk, under the title of Hour of the Blue. Fabre''s driving force is intuition, and, instinct. He is much inspired by dreams, too. Thousands of his drawings are meant to compose a sort of a diary.
Drawing is for him the primary field of artistic research. Insects are a propelling force behind Jan Fabre''s visual as well as theatrical work. He is fond of drawing - sculpture relationships, a deepened search into drawing being drawing sculptures whereas into sculpture, drawings in which he would use peculiar sculpting techniques. Example being 19 m long and 10 m high drawings such as The flying cock or The road from the Earth to the stars is not smooth or the drawing sculptures House of flames III and Scissors'' house.
Since 1980, Jan Fabre has been engaged in theatrical, operatic, and dance performances. Troubleyn, a creative-work association established by Fabre, supports realisations of his projects. In theatre, he has been inspired by his own performance-art experiences which has borne fruit in, among other things, drawing much attention to body expression in acting. For him, the aesthetic, mental and energetic facets of spectacle are of equal import.
International renown became for Fabre in 1982 with his 8-hour-long performance entitled This is the theatre one should have awaited and expected. A famous event was also the 1984 show The power of theatrical frenzy staged to open the Biennale in Venice. Fabre made his debut as a choreographer with Dance sections (1987), presented as part of the Documenta 8 in Kassel, and meant as initial study toward Fabre''s first opera, staged 1990 at the Flemish Opera, Antwerp.
Jan Fabre''s stage output is a persistent search for the absolute beauty and spirituality. He describes himself and his dancers as the Warriors of Beauty. Himself, he dances, as it were, on the high-set borderline between the art and life, driven by that paradoxical concept of his. Fabre is deemed to be a significant personage in the visual arts and theatre of 1990''s. His productions have been staged in several countries of Europe, as well as in the USA, Japan, and Australia. He approaches all the artistic fields he cultivates with equal seriousness, while too advocating interdisciplinary art. For many years now, Fabre has been a contributor to the renowned Antwerp deSingel arts centre. His visual works are displayed in significant European museums and galleries.
|
