Jan Fabre looks impeccable - in patent black parquet shoes, a dark gray suit and a long gray coat with a gray fur collar, thick silver hair and graphic black frames of glasses. Taste and style, which are completely optional for a modern art figure, make him even more modern - he is beyond all cliches about the artist, both romantic and nonconformist. There is no special “bohemianism” in him, no ostentatious anti-consumerism, no boring bourgeoisism. He understands that clothes are for modern man- the same characteristic as the choice of music, like the choice of a favorite artist, like any intellectual choice in general. In Moscow, during a public talk at the Territory festival, he was wearing cool jeans with neat fraying, a white shirt and a thick blue sweater - and also impeccable in appearance. Fabre has a perfect sense of what to wear to sit in the small hall of the Gogol Center, and what to wear when running back and forth across Palace Square(one part of his exhibition is in the Winter Palace and the New Hermitage, the other in the General Staff Building). Fabre generally has a perfect sense of time and place, form and content.
He walks through the halls of the Hermitage on the eve of the opening, where not all the labels have yet been hung and not all the fences have been placed, and patiently answers the same questions from journalists - he recites a memorized text about what works he specially made for the Hermitage (a series of marble bas-reliefs “My queens" in the Van Dyck halls, a series of small paintings "Falsification of a secret celebration IV" in the Romanov Gallery), repeats his favorite self-definition - "I am a dwarf from the land of giants", tells a witty story about his beloved Rubens, "who was Andy Warhol 500 years ago" . And all this - for the 125th time - with lively energy, emotional and fiery, as if for the first time. “Art is not experience, but curiosity,” says Jan Fabre and demonstrates how brilliantly he masters this professional quality.
“I Let Myself Expire”, 2006
“I am a dwarf in a land of giants!”A series of small paintings “Falsification of a secret celebration IV”, 2016
Performance« Love - higher power » , 2016
For the Hermitage, this is, of course, an unprecedented exhibition - never before among its walls and collections has contemporary art looked so convincingly, and not simply arranged, and never before has modern art entered into a real dialogue with old art, rather than simply overshadowing it. Fabre in this sense is an ideal artist - especially for the Hermitage. He grew up in Antwerp, where he lived near Rubens's home and went there to copy his paintings, learning to paint and draw. He says that Hermitage director Mikhail Piotrovsky and exhibition curator Dmitry Ozerkov gave him the opportunity to choose any halls, and he immediately decided that he would choose his native Flemings, among whom he grew up: “You have the best Rubens, wonderful Jordaens, magnificent Van Dyck, excellent Snyders " Dmitry Ozerkov explains the principles of working with Hermitage paintings - the canvases could be moved left and right and up and down, but could not be swapped, although some paintings, for example, in the Rubens hall, were removed to hang Fabre's blue canvases in their place - “ The Appearance and Disappearance of Bacchus”, “The Appearance and Disappearance of Christ”, “The Appearance and Disappearance of Antwerp”, where images appear only if you point a smartphone or camera at them. Nowhere would this statement by Fabre about the role of old art in modern art life look more appropriate than next to Rubens’ “Union of Earth and Water,” “Bacchus” and “Christ Crowned with Thorns.” “Avant-garde is always rooted in old art. There is no avant-garde without old art,” says Jan Fabre.
"A devoted guide to vanity." SeriesVanitas vanitatum, omnia vanitas, 2016
"The Appearance and Disappearance of Antwerp I", 2016. Rubens Hall
The reverence with which Fabre’s things are hung and arranged among the great Hermitage collection is extremely touching. In the Snyders hall hang Fabrov's signature skulls made of scarab beetles (their shells are purchased from restaurants in Southeast Asia), in the teeth of which there are stuffed birds and animals and, as if flowing, in the style of Dali, art brushes. A group made especially for the Hermitage - a skeleton made of scarabs and a stuffed swan in its arms - floats in the air against the backdrop of the same swan with famous painting"Bird Concert". And you understand that you are not just following Fabre’s witty play with the old masters, but you are suddenly seeing this Snyders himself with a completely fresh look - the look of a man who grew up next to these paintings, spent hours copying them, absorbed from these paintings every feather of every bird and every scale every fish. That is, you see them with great love and gratitude.
Gravetomb and skulls series, 2000
One of the best halls Fabre's exhibitions are Van Dyck's hall. There are huge bas-reliefs made of Carrara marble “My Queens” - these are real women, Fabre’s acquaintances and friends, all in modern clothes, with earrings protruding from the bas-relief, freely hanging in their ears and carnival caps on their heads: “Brigitte of Antwerp” or “Helga” Ghent", for example. And in the center, on a high pedestal, stands the future Belgian Queen Elizabeth - the heir to the throne, who is now 14 years old, a fragile marble girl in jeans and a T-shirt and in the same cap. And the entire hall, filled with ceremonial Vandyck portraits with their emasculated gloss (you immediately remember Pushkin’s “Olga has no life in her features. Just like Vandyke’s Madonna”), immediately turns into a living and convincing hymn modern women with their strength and fragility, freedom and struggle - all that progressive fashion designers usually write about in press releases for their collections, but which is so difficult to express without completely worn cliches. Fabre knows how to do this - to say understandable things freshly and convincingly: “My goal is to protect the vulnerability of the human being.”
Series “My Queens”, 2016
What is shown in the General Staff building - large installations and large sculptures - is of a completely different kind. These are two large installations - “Red Transformer” and “Green Transformer” - and large-scale spatial objects. In the huge halls, next to Kabakov’s “Red Carriage” and with a colossal Rubens on the wall, Fabre looks strictly conceptual and social. The most exciting thing here is to see how a work placed in a new context has a new meaning. For example, an installation with stuffed cats and dogs that Fabre once made for the Geneva Museum and for which he collected dead animals on the sides of the highway: on the floor, under the stuffed animals hanging among the tinsel, there are unwrapped packs of butter. Fabre says that he was referring to the alchemical value of oil as a mediator, and the dog here, as in Flemish painting XVII century, is a symbol of fidelity and devotion. For us, it looks like an acutely social statement on the topic of human responsibility and high-profile stories of poisoning stray dogs. And this living life art that unfolds right here and now, in front of the viewer.
« Chapters I-XVIII» , 2010
"The Man Who Measures the Clouds", 1998
The fact that we have a Fabre exhibition is not just a joy. This is also a sign that we are finally beginning to recognize contemporary art in parallel with the whole world - because Jan Fabre is one of its most relevant figures today. And not just an artist whose exhibitions are held in grand museums around the world, but also a director whose 24-hour performance “Mount Olympus” became the main theatrical event recent years, and the author of plays, and the creator of videos, and in general a humanist of Renaissance proportions. To see it is to see the main thing in modern art. And to see it in Russia means to see Russia in the context of the main contemporary art. And the way the small figurine of the golden man with a ruler in his hands - “The Man Who Measures the Clouds” - looks in the courtyard of the Hermitage is not at all what it looked like just now in the Belvedere fortress in Florence. Because, as Fabre says: “Every time you destroy, and then you build again.”
The editors of Buro 24/7 would like to thank Kempinski Hotel Moika 22 for their assistance in organizing the material.
Jan Fabre: Knight of despair – warrior of beauty November 27th, 2016
I really liked it!
I will say right away that I am not an art critic or a fan of postmodernism.
But in last days The degree of public indignation reached its peak.
As you know, if the great art critic of our time Milonov himself called the exhibition State Hermitage"spit in the soul to the Russian people", at the same time, according to old tradition, the fighter for morality did not visit the exhibition, then you should definitely go! At the same time, I wanted to find out what the “Russian people” are, but this is secondary.
In fact, the decisive impetus was my mother’s comment: go before the exhibition is closed, it’s unusual, sometimes scary, and at the same time you’ll finally visit the General Staff Building.
So, because of this exhibit, all the fuss flared up
Lord, is this “a spit in the soul of the Russian people”? In my opinion, spitting in the face of Russian citizens is endless lies from TV and the State Duma, and this is just an exhibit in a museum.
The level of education in Russia is surprising. With Milonov, everything is clear - thanks to the good old tricks, he reached the ceiling of his career - sitting his pants in the State Duma. But this mass of my fellow citizens... What were they taught at school, what were they brought up in the family? Can’t they really distinguish between a stuffed animal in a museum, a scientific and educational dissection of a giraffe in a zoo, and a beef tenderloin in the meat department from the actions of sickly knackers in Khabarovsk? Nude Venus in the Louvre and David on the streets of Florence and St. Petersburg are not pornography, but art. Human anatomy and physiology in general, and the reproductive system of the body in particular, is not the corruption of minors, but necessary knowledge for the young. So it turns out that syphilis at 17 years old is “it just happened,” and it’s embarrassing to look at Rubens’s paintings - “there are naked women and men there.”
And for the idiots who put the tag #shame on the Hermitage, you need to organize forced excursions to the best museum in the world, and, for health prevention, to the wonderful Museum of Hygiene.
The Hermitage was covered with a wave of indignation, and with each new retelling on the Internet, the description of the exhibition was aggravated by chilling details. And supposedly the Winter Palace was desecrated with the corpses of cats and dogs (although the installation is not shown there), and supposedly they show a crucified cat (although there is no such exhibit at the exhibition), and “children are watching” (the age limit for the exhibition is 16+).
Instagram was filled with the hashtag #shame on the Hermitage, which has already been used more than five and a half thousand times. One of those who “wound up” the public’s nerves (not without benefit for themselves) was singer Elena Vaenga. In the best traditions of the statement “and you have blacks lynched,” she managed in one post to fight back against the complaints previously expressed to her about driving in the oncoming lane in reverse and incite people against the Hermitage. It worked: no one is interested in the singer’s offenses anymore!
Not without Vitaly Milonov. In an interview with the radio station “Moscow Speaks,” he called the exhibition “a spit in the soul of the Russian people,” and at the same time unwittingly outlined his position in the dispute between Konstantin Raikin and the Ministry of Culture.
“If we say something against it, the guardians of Russian art like the Raikins will immediately come out and be indignant again, as the only guardians of high aesthetic feeling, and they will complain about us,” said the deputy of the now State Duma.
He called the exhibits “vulgarity,” “abomination,” and “nonsense,” Jan Fabre himself, “an art bum” and “some kind of experimenter,” and the Hermitage’s decision to hold the exhibition “tyranny” and “complete idiocy.”
The director of the Hermitage, Mikhail Piotrovsky, was forced to explain himself. With his characteristic intelligence, he did not directly point out to visitors their inattention and even said that agitating the public was precisely the goal of the Hermitage.
“The cry in defense of animals is indeed correct, and we woke people up, forced them to talk about it,” he said, meeting with journalists last Friday at the opening of an exhibition of Zakhar Smushkin’s collection. – Jan Fabre talks specifically about the fact that people who say they “love animals” sometimes throw them into the streets, and then they die under the wheels of cars on the roads. Fabre excites with his sharp story public opinion and once again shows that art is actually very complex, and not as primitive as it is understood.”
Piotrovsky promised to tell the townspeople how many stuffed animals are kept in all museums around the world, including mummies from Egyptian tombs.
“In the Hermitage there are stuffed animals of the favorite dogs of the emperors, stuffed animals of the favorite horses of the emperors - I’m not talking about the Kunstkamera and Zoological Museum. Remember how many animals are depicted in the paintings, and these are all killed animals. We just showed a restored painting by van der Helst - a terrible, freshly skinned body of a pig. This is a conversation about Holland at that time, and we tried several times to explain how many different meanings there are.”
At the same time, the director of the Hermitage recalled that, in fact, one of the hallmarks of the Hermitage is the dozens of cats living in its basements: they are taken care of, fed and given medical examinations - so accusing the museum of supporting animal husbandry is absurd and cynical.
http://www.fontanka.ru/2016/11/12/066/
"Carnival of the Dead Mutts", 2006, Belgium, stuffed animals, wooden table, paper.
The main technique of Fabre's exhibition is the dialogue of "old" and "new".
On background, behind the multi-colored serpentine
The cook is at the table with game. Pauwel (Paul) de Vos, Jacob Jordans. Flanders, around 1670. Hermitage
In the same hall, on the other side
"Protest of dead stray cats", 2007, Belgium, stuffed animals, wooden table, paper.
There's a picture behind the tinsel
Self-portrait. Katharina van Hemessen, Netherlands, 1548. Hermitage
Explanation of installations
Installations with cats and dogs are the most powerful and understandable.
Other exhibits are more symbolic.
Umbraculum, Belgium, 2001, bone, metal wire, aluminum, elytra.
(Umbraculum is a ceremonial umbrella, used in religious processions.)
It turns out that beetle wings are wonderful, deep artistic material.
Like bone slices
In the background is the Resurrection of Christ, Rubens. The painting has not yet been scanned, there is no image. The Hermitage itself only recently learned that it was Rubens.
Fly and Beetle. Jan Fabre's grandfather was an entomologist, which explains the presence of stuffed animals, beetle shells, etc. in Jan's work.
To understand the meaning, you had to watch the movie (I didn’t watch it, so I didn’t understand anything)
In the span of the courtyard - "The Hanged Man II"
The cabin is the “House of Scissors”, and the canvas is “The Road from the Earth to the Stars is Not Paved”
Colored with a ballpoint pen.
Back in big hall there was this thing
The problem with postmodernism is that you will never guess - is it scaffolding for mounting exhibits or an independent exhibit? This does not apply to Fabre - his works are so complex that everything is immediately clear.
I couldn’t find a signature for this thing, but I was embarrassed to ask the grandmother-caretaker:(
Everyone knows anecdotal cases when a cleaning lady swept museum halls, saying, “The people have become uncultured! They threw up pieces of paper right in the center of the museum! And I have to clean up after these assholes!” As a result, the cleaning lady threw exhibits of ultra-fashionable artists into the trash. I am sure that this is exactly what the hooligan artists wanted; the process of throwing it out was part of their plan. However, this is too subtle for me.
Articles for independent optional reading:
Alexander Borovsky, head of the department of the latest trends of the Russian Museum, about the Fabre exhibition and protests against art: http://www.fontanka.ru/2016/11/14/129/
Answers to the most popular questions about stuffed animals: http://www.hermitagemuseum.org/wps/portal/hermitage/what-s-on/museum-blog/blog-post/fabr
The second half of the Fabre exhibition, in classical art gallery Winter Palace:
He is an artist, a sculptor, a screenwriter, and even a theater director. Fabre was born in Belgium in 1958 and is now considered one of the important contemporary artists. His work in the field fine arts he makes from drawings, films and installations. It is for such a hodgepodge that he is appreciated.
Why does he exhibit stuffed animals in the Hermitage?
The dogs and cats in Fabre's installations are stray animals that died on the roads. According to the artist, he thus gives them new life in art and conquers death. Fabre believes that today people’s attitude towards animals is consumerist: cats and dogs are often left at their dachas or kicked out of the house. And Fabre wants to show that you cannot get rid of an animal if it is sick or old. And also an artist believes that if he demonstratesstuffed parrots in the mouths of dog skeletons and hangingstuffed cats by the scruff of the neck, the public lingers longer in the halls.
- Why doesn't he use artificial materials instead of stuffed animals?
According to Fabre, the sensual component is very important for him. To all claims heremembers that Flemish artists Blood and crushed human bones were used to make paints.
- And the Hermitage allowed him to show THIS?
- Yeah. And by the way, p projects of similar scale have not yet been awarded to any in the Hermitage modern author. The museum insists that Fabre's exhibition should be perceived as a special form of dialogue with the legacy of Rubens and Van Dyck. The stuffed animals are right next to their canvases and remind that the artist did not harm anyone.
- The public was outraged! Will the exhibition be closed?
Yes, the Hermitage began to receive numerous complaints, including from animal rights activists. Visitors to the museum were not too lazy to leave in the guest book: “In the background of the paintings, stuffed animals are hanging on hooks. On the windows there are stuffed dead cats scratching the glass with a corresponding sound. A dog is suspended by its skin on hooks. People went to admire the paintings, but came across horror... “We didn’t sleep all night... The children were shocked by what they saw... A pedophile exhibition was closed in Moscow, and in the center of the cultural Northern capital, sadists are hanging the corpses of killed animals on hooks.”
On the Internet, indignant people write their opinions about the shocking exhibition under the hashtag #shame on thehermitage. But not everyone can believably play animal rights activists:
In turn, the Hermitage management stated that it does not intend to close the exhibition and it will last until April 2017.
- Is it just us who are so lucky or have other museums around the world also exhibited his works?
Eight years ago Fabre had an exhibition at the Louvre. In the hall of ceremonial portraits, he laid out tombstones, among which crawled a giant worm with human head. In another room, his exhibits were an iron bed and a coffin, inlaid with gold beetles. By the way, there were also stuffed animals there.
- What other tricks is he famous for?
Well, for example, in 1978, he painted a series of paintings with his own blood, “My Body, My Blood, My Landscape,” and made a performance out of the creation of the paintings. The following year, Fabre again attracted attention with the performance “Money”. He collected paper banknotes from visitors to the exhibition, after which he began to crumple them, cut them, walk on them with his feet and everything in the same spirit. At the end of the performance, he burned the bills and wrote the word Money using the ashes.
An exhibition opens at the Hermitage Belgian artist Jan Fabre "Knight of despair - warrior of beauty." Stuffed animals and skulls, a video of a living knight in the Knights' Hall and paintings drawn with a Bic pen - "Paper" tells what they brought to the Winter Palace and the General Staff, what the “Fabre style” carnival is, which will be held at the museum in December, and what provocative works the Belgian became famous for.
The Hermitage exhibits an artist famous, among other things, for his performance of the “world championship” in male and female masturbation
The Flemish artist has been known for 40 years as a director of theater, opera and dance productions, a performance artist and a writer. The works of the grandson of the famous entomologist Jean-Henri Fabre (which is important for understanding the artist’s work) often cause shock and controversy among the public and critics.
In 1978, at the exhibition “My Body, My Blood, My Landscape,” Fabre exhibited paintings written in blood. Later, he made a splash throughout the world with his project “Sky of Admiration”: the artist decorated the ceiling and chandelier in the royal palace in Brussels with one and a half million Thai beetles.
Fabre was also the artistic director international festival in Athens, and staged provocative performances such as “Orgy of Tolerance,” which was even somehow brought to Moscow. The production begins with a “world championship” in male and female masturbation. There is also a scene in which pregnant women, sitting on supermarket carts, “give birth” to a grocery store’s assortment, and much more that an unprepared public might call lewd.
Fabre’s first exhibition in Russia, much less provocative, which the Hermitage 20/21 project wanted to hold almost from the moment of its creation, is addressed to the other side of the artist’s work. In the Hermitage exhibition, Fabre appears as a “warrior of beauty,” and the works brought to St. Petersburg echo masterpieces of world painting.
The artist himself claims that his interest in art was awakened in him after a visit to Rubens’ house in Antwerp at the age of 12. Actually, Peter Paul Rubens and Jacob Jordaens are his main sources of inspiration. It was in this direction that the artist and project curator Dmitry Ozerkov worked at the Hermitage.
Dmitry Ozerkov, curator of the exhibition:
This exhibition is different, it is not an invasion. Fabre, a modern artist, comes to our museum not to compete with him, but to bend the knee before the old masters, before beauty. This exhibition is not about Fabre, it is about the energies of the Hermitage in its four contexts: the painting of the old masters, the history of buildings, the cradle of the revolution and the place where the tsars lived.
“Knight of Despair - Warrior of Beauty” is the largest solo exhibition of a contemporary artist in the Hermitage
More than 200 works by Fabre were brought to St. Petersburg. Some of them were made specifically for the Hermitage. The exhibits are exhibited in the Winter Palace, the New Hermitage and the General Staff Building; you will have to look for them among the exhibits of the permanent collection, for example, in the halls of Snyders, Van Dyck and Rubens, in the Knights' Hall and the Great Court. In the General Headquarters, the works are presented in such a way that a dialogue can be traced with Ilya Kabakov’s “Red Carriage” exhibited here: in three courtyards and transforming halls between them.
This scope can perhaps be explained by the fact that Jan Fabre inherits the traditions of classical Flemish painting, which is so important for the main museum of the country and especially for the Hermitage 20/21 project. In addition, in the Hermitage, an artist exhibiting in the museum must make an exhibit especially for them. Fabr brought just such works.
Fabre's works are exhibited as part of the museum's main exhibition
The artist’s inherent kinship with the masters of Flemish painting of the past became the reason for the non-standard hanging of Fabre’s works. The Flemish’s paintings, installations and films are exhibited on equal terms with the Hermitage’s permanent collection and, as the museum believes, “enter into dialogue with recognized masterpieces of world art.” Fabre had already tried this type of exhibition when he held an exhibition at the Louvre. In the Rubens Hall in Paris, gravestones were placed, and on them were the dates of the lives of European scientists, renamed insects.
In addition, in the summer Fabre came to the Hermitage to walk through the halls of the museum for a performance in knight’s armor, specially created for him in Belgium, a recording of which is now exhibited here. In the museum you can also see Fabre's armor, which he wore together with Marina Abramovic Virgin/Warrior performance, as well as beetle armor.
Despite the moderate level of provocation of the Hermitage exhibition, visitors have already responded negatively to Fabre’s works
Under a photograph of one of Jan Fabre's works in the halls of the Hermitage - a stuffed rabbit in the teeth of a human skull - on the official Instagram account of the museum flared up controversy over the appropriateness of such works in a museum.
elena0123450 This is what children see?!!!😳🙈 And after that you want a normal child’s psyche?!
zheniya_ya Poor animal 😭 what kind of idiocy? Dry the author and replace it with a bunny 👊
ly_uda Ugh, what a disgusting thing????
mimo__prohodila What kind of tin is this? 😱
babavera823 Abomination!
In conjunction with the exhibition, a Fabre-style carnival and a 24-hour marathon will be held at the General Staff Building
The project “Knight of Despair - Warrior of Beauty” has a serious educational program. In addition to the meeting with the artist, registration for which, unfortunately, is already closed, the General Staff will host lectures, screenings, discussions and round tables with the participation of critics, art historians, theater figures, and musicians. And young artists will create a theatrical performance-interpretation based on the work of Fabre.
As part of the annual New Year's program of the Youth Center, a carnival “in the style of Fabre” will be held at the General Staff: a parade of masks and a defile of costumes created by students.
Towards the end of the exhibition, on the night of March 31 to April 1, an intellectual marathon will be held in the same General Staff Building: the performance of Jan Fabre's Mount Olympus will last 24 hours.
The exhibition will run until April 9, 2017. Entrance to the main building of the museum is 400 rubles, to the General Headquarters - 300 rubles, a complex ticket - 600 rubles.
Recommended for 16+. Jan Fabre is one of the most fertile and important artists of his generation. He has created a number of new works especially for this exhibition numbering more than 200 artworks.
The carnival giant in Brussels
Series
2016
20.3 x 16.8 cm
© Angelos bvba/ Jan Fabre
The Gilles of Binche in full regalia on Shrove Tuesday
FALSIFICATION DE LA FÊTE SECRETE IV Series
2016
20.3 x 16.8 cm
HB pencil, color pencil and crayons on chromo
© Angelos bvba/ Jan Fabre
The Appearance and Disappearance of Antwerp I
2016
124 x 165.3 cm
Ballpoint (bic) on Poly G-flm (Bonjet High Gloss white flm 200gr), dibond
© Angelos bvba/ Jan Fabre
The Appearance and Disappearance of Christ I
2016
124 x 165.3 cm
Ballpoint (bic) on Poly G-film (Bonjet High Gloss white film 200gr), dibond
© Angelos bvba/ Jan Fabre
The loyal guide of vanity (II / III)
Series
2016
227 x 172 cm
© Angelos bvba/ Jan Fabre
The loyal ecstasy of death
Vanitas vanitatum, omnia vanitas Series
2016
227 x 172 cm
Jewel beetle wing-cases on wood
© Angelos bvba/ Jan Fabre
Els of Bruges
My Queens Series
2016
White Carrara-marble
200 x 150 x 11.5 cm
© Angelos bvba/ Jan Fabre
Ivana of Zagreb
My Queens Series
2016
White Carrara-marble
200 x 150 x 11.5 cm
© Angelos bvba/ Jan Fabre
Jan Fabre (Antwerp, 1958), a visual artist, theater artist and author, uses his works to speculate in a loud and tangible manner about life and death, physical and social transformations, as well as about the cruel and intelligent imagination which is present in both animals and humans.
For more than thirty-five years Jan Fabre has been one of the most innovative and important figures on the international contemporary art scene. As a visual artist, theater maker and author he has created a highly personal world with its own rules and laws, as well as its own characters, symbols, and recurring motifs. Influenced by research carried out by the entomologist Jean-Henri Fabre (1823-1915), he became fascinated by the world of insects and other creatures at a very young age. In the late seventies, while studying at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts and the Municipal Institute of Decorative Arts and Crafts in Antwerp, he explored ways of extending his research to the domain of the human body. His own performances and actions, from 1976 to the present, have been essential to his artistic journey. Jan Fabre's language involves a variety of materials and is situated in a world of his own, populated by bodies in a balance between the opposites that define natural existence. Metamorphosis is a key concept in any approach to Jan Fabre’s body of thought, in which human and animal life are in constant interaction. He unfolds his universe through his author’s texts and nocturnal notes, published in the volumes of his Night Diary. As a consilience artist, he has merged performance art and theater. Jan Fabre has changed the idiom of the theater by bringing real time and real action to the stage. After his historic eight-hour production "This is theater like it was to be expected and foreseen" (1982) and four-hour production "The power of theatrical madness" (1984), he raised his work to a new level in the exceptional and monumental "Mount Olympus. To glorify the cult of tragedy, a 24-hour performance" (2015).
Jan Fabre has earned the recognition of a worldwide audience with "Tivoli" castle (1990) and with permanent public works in sites of historical importance, such as "Heaven of Delight" (2002) at the Royal Palace in Brussels, "The Gaze Within ( The Hour Blue)" (2011 – 2013) in the Royal Staircase of the Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels and his latest installation in the Antwerp Cathedral of "The man who bears the cross" (2015).
He is known for solo exhibitions such as "Homo Faber" (KMSKA, Antwerp, 2006), "Hortus / Corpus" (Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, 2011) and "Stigmata. Actions and Performances", 1976–2013 (MAXXI, Rome, 2013; M HKA, Antwerp, 2015; MAC, Lyon, 2016). He was the first living artist to present a large-scale exhibition at the Louvre, Paris (“L’ange de la métamorphose”, 2008). The well-known series "The Hour Blue" (1977 – 1992) was displayed in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna (2011), in the Musée d'Art Moderne of Saint-Etienne (2012) and in the Busan Museum of Art (2013) ). His research on “the sexiest part of the body”, namely the brain, was presented in the solo shows “Anthropology of a planet” (Palazzo Benzon, Venice, 2007), “From the Cellar to the Attic, From the Feet to the Brain" (Kunsthaus Bregenz, 2008; Arsenale Novissimo, Venice, 2009), and "PIETAS" (Nuova Scuola Grande di Santa Maria della Misericordia, Venice, 2011; Parkloods Park Spoor Noord, Antwerp, 2012). The two series of mosaics made with the wing cases of the jewel scarab "Tribute to Hieronymus Bosch in Congo" (2011 – 2013) and "Tribute to Belgian Congo" (2010– 2013) were shown at the PinchukArtCentre in Kiev (2013) and the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Lille (2013) and will travel to 's-Hertogenbosch in 2016 for the 500th anniversary celebration of Hieronymus Bosch.
As emphasized by the artist and acknowledged by critics and researchers, his art goes back to the traditions of classic Flemish art, which he admires. Peter Paul Rubens and Jacob Jordaens are important inspirations, and the visitors will (or won’t) see it for themselves. For the exhibition period, Fabre’s works will make part of the museum’s permanent exhibition and enter into a dialogue with the absolute international masterpieces. The idea of the exhibition appeared after Jan Fabre had a large scale solo exhibition Jan Fabre. L'ange de la métamorphose at the Flanders and the Netherlands Rooms at the Louvre in 2008.
At the Hermitage halls, this “sketch” will develop into a major art event that is sure to spark a great interest and many debates, which are to be held at another intellectual discussion marathon. The exhibition will come with a series of lectures, master classes and round-table discussions. The exposition will air eight films, including the performance film Love is the Power Supreme (2016) featuring the artist, which was filmed in the Winter Palace in June 2016. This work will remain in the collection of The State Hermitage Collection. As a grandson of a famous entomologist, Jan Fabre widely uses the wildlife aesthetics. He uses beetle shells, animal skeletons and horns, as well as stuffed animals and images of animals in various materials. The list of unusual materials goes beyond that and covers blood and BIC blue ink.
The exhibition has been organized by the Contemporary Art Department at the State Hermitage in a frame of the Hermitage 20/21 Project. It is under patronage of V St. Petersburg International Cultural Forum.