Jan Fabre is a visual artist, theatre maker, and writer, regarded as one of the most versatile and influential artists of his generation. He links theory and practice across disciplines in a fact-based way, aiming for continuous advancement in knowledge. He actively searches for and recognizes connections between different fields, which has led him to bring new and original perspectives to visual arts, theatre, and writing. While focusing on the relationship between sculpture and drawing, he creates painting-like sculptures using materials such as bronze and jewel beetles.
Over a career spanning more than 40 years, Fabre has gained recognition as a theatre director, choreographer, visual artist, and author. In his works, which include controversial materials like animal skeletons, taxidermy, insects, and blood, he incorporates symbols and motifs. He views the relationship between humans and animals as a key element of transformation. His works often carry theatrical concerns. He questions the existential meaning of the body, investigating its fluid boundaries to understand how it adapts to every emotion and thought. He sees the body as a shell that holds the “self,” identity, and deeper layers of being.
From the beginning of his career, he established a strong connection with theatre and started drawing attention through his performances. Between the 1970s and 1980s, he carried out a series of striking and provocative acts: renaming the street he lived on as Jan Fabre Street; placing a plaque on his family home reading “Jan Fabre lives and works here” as a nod to Van Gogh; making drawings with his own blood in a personal performance; and locking himself in a white cube filled with objects for three days and nights in “The Bic-Art Room.” In 1986, he founded the theatre company Troubleyn/Jan Fabre, with which he has continued to stage internationally acclaimed productions.
Jan Fabre was born on December 14, 1958, in Antwerp. He studied at the Municipal Institute of Decorative Arts and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. His large-scale works, such as the ceiling installation in the Royal Palace of Brussels made with 1.6 million jewel beetles, and “Totem,” a giant jewel beetle mounted on a 22-meter-high needle placed in Leuven’s Ladeuzeplein square, have drawn significant attention. His works have been exhibited at major institutions and events including the Louvre Museum (France), Musée Royaux des Beaux-Arts (Belgium), CAAC Sevilla (Spain), Musée d’Art Contemporain de Lyon (France), Leopold Museum (Austria), Forte Belvedere, Palazzo Vecchio, Piazza della Signoria (Florence), Museum Beelden Aan Zee (Switzerland), Van Gogh Museum (Netherlands), Kunsthalle Basel (Switzerland), the Venice Biennale (Italy), and the Lyon Biennale (France). His play Angel of Death was staged in Istanbul in 2006 as part of the 15th Istanbul International Theatre Festival and the 4th Theatre Olympics.
Jan Fabre lives and works in Antwerp.