Jan Fabre

Jan Fabre
Jan Fabre (center) in 2008
Born	1958 Antwerp, Belgium

Jan Fabre (born 1958) is a Belgian multidisciplinary artist, playwright, stage director, choreographer and designer.

Fabre studied at the Municipal Institute of Decorative Arts and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp.

Between 1976 en 1980 he wrote his first scripts for the theatre and did his first solo performances. During his 'money-performances', he burned money and wrote the word 'MONEY' with the ashes. In 1977, he renamed the street where he lived to "Jan Fabre Street" and fixed a commemorative plaque "Here lives and works Jan Fabre" to the house of his parents, analogous to the commemorative plate on the house of Vincent Van Gogh in the same street. In 1978 he made drawings with his own blood during the solo performance 'My body, my blood, my landscape'. In 1980, in 'The Bic-Art Room', he had himself locked up for three days and three nights in a white cube full of objects, drawing with blue "Bic" ballpoint pens as an alternative to "Big" art. Fabre also established in 1986 the Troubleyn/Jan Fabre theatre company with extensive international operations; its home base is Antwerp, Belgium.

From 1980, Fabre began his career as a stage director and stage designer in the following productions:

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

Fabre also explores relationships between drawing and sculpture and has made sculptures in bronze (among them The man who measures the clouds and Searching for Utopia) and with beetles.

His decoration of the ceiling of the Royal Palace in Brussels, titled 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 in Leuven.