Jan Fabre is a Belgian

Belgium

Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

 multidisciplinary artist

Artist

An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...

, playwright

Playwright

A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...

, stage director, choreographer and designer

Designer

A designer is a person who designs. More formally, a designer is an agent that "specifies the structural properties of a design object". In practice, anyone who creates tangible or intangible objects, such as consumer products, processes, laws, games and graphics, is referred to as a...

.

He studied at the Municipal Institute of Decorative Arts and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. Between 1976 and 1980 he wrote his first scripts for the theatre and made his debut performances.

Established in 1986, Troubleyn/Jan Fabre is a theatre company with extensive international operations, with its home base in Antwerp, Belgium.

From 1980 he began his career as a stage director and stage designer:

• Theater geschreven met een K is een kater (1980),
• Het is theater zoals te verwachten en te voorzien was ("It is Theatre as to be Expected and Foreseen", 1982),
• De macht der theaterlijke dwaasheden ("The power of theatrical madness", Biënnale Venice 1984),
• Das Glas im Kopf wird vom Glas (1987),
• Prometheus
  Prometheus
  In Greek mythology, Prometheus is a Titan, the son of Iapetus and Themis, and brother to Atlas, Epimetheus and Menoetius. He was a champion of mankind, known for his wily intelligence, who stole fire from Zeus and gave it to mortals...
  
   Landschaft’ (1988),
• Das Interview das stirbt... (1989),
• Der Palast um vier Uhr morgens..., A.G. (1989),
• Die Reinkarnation Gottes (1989),
• Das Glas im Kopf wird vom Glas (1990),
• The Sound of one hand clapping (1990),
• Sweet Temptations (1991),
• She was and she is, even (1991),
• Wie spreekt mijn gedachte ... (1992),
• Silent Screams, Difficult Dreams(1992),
• Vervalsing zoals ze is, onvervalst (1992),
• Da un’altra faccia del tempo (1993),
• Quando la terra si rimette in movimento (1995),
• Three Dance-solos (1995),
• A dead normal woman(1995),
• Universal Copyrights 1 & 9 (1995),
• De keizer van het verlies (1996),
• The very seat of honour (1997),
• Body, Body on the wall (1997),
• Glowing Icons (1997),
• The Pick-wick-man (1997),
• Ik ben jaloers op elke zee…(1997),
• The fin comes a little bit earlier this siècle (But business as usual)(1998),
• Het nut van de nacht (1999),
• As long as the world needs a warrior’s soul (2000),
• My movements are alone like streetdogs (2000),
• Je suis Sang (conte de fées médiéval) (2001),
• Het zwanenmeer (2002),
• Swanlake (2002),
• Parrots & guinea pigs (2002),
• Je suis sang(2003),
• Angel of death (2003),
• Tannhäuser (co-production)' (2004)
• Elle était et elle est, meme (2004),
• Etant donnés (2004),
• Quando L'Uomo principale è una donna (2004),
• The crying body (2004),
• The King of Plagiarism (2005),
• History of Tears (2005),
• I am a Mistake (2007),
• Requiem für eine Metamorphose (2007),
• Another Sleepy Dusty Delta Day (2008),
• Orgy of Tolerance (2009)
• The Servant of Beauty, 2010
• Prometheus–Landscape II (2011)

Fabre is famous for his Bic-art (ballpoint drawings). In 1990, he covered an entire building with ballpoint drawings.

He explores the relationships between drawing and sculpture. He also makes sculptures in bronze (among them The man who measures the clouds and Searching for Utopia

Utopia

Utopia is an ideal community or society possessing a perfect socio-politico-legal system. The word was imported from Greek by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean. The term has been used to describe both intentional communities that attempt...

) and with beetles.

His decoration of the ceiling of the Royal Palace in Brussels Heaven of Delight (made out of one million six hundred thousand jewel-scarab wing cases) is widely praised. In 2004 he erected Totem, a giant bug stuck on a 70 foot steel needle, on the Ladeuzeplein

Ladeuzeplein

The Mgr. Ladeuzeplein is a square in the center of Leuven . The square was named after a former rector of the Catholic University Leuven, Monseigneur Paulin Ladeuze. The Ladeuzeplein is the largest square in Leuven...

 in Leuven

Leuven

Leuven is the capital of the province of Flemish Brabant in the Flemish Region, Belgium...

.

In 2008, Jan Fabre's The Angel of Metamorphosis exhibition was held at the Louvre Museum.

External links

• Jan Fabre at Glasstress - Biennale of Venice
• Jan Fabre Troubleyn
• Jan Fabre Angelos
• Jan Fabre on the 52nd Biennale of Venice
• The case of Jan Fabre
• Jan Fabre and Lisbeth Gruwez photos from Quando L'Uomo principale è una donna
• Jan Fabre Artnet Page
• A Beautiful, Bug-Infested Ceiling