Jan Fabre – Exhibition at the Maeght Fondation

My only nation is imagination

June 30 to November 11, 2018

The Maeght Foundation welcomes Belgian artist Jan Fabre until November 11, 2018. The exhibition will be devoted to his sculptures, mostly in marble, and his drawings that deal with the mind, the body, our dreams and especially, our imagination in conversation with scientific discoveries, the mind and the brain which become a source, a land, a character whose adventures we experience in this exhibition, through the works created especially for this event.

No introduction is necessary for Jan Fabre, a major heir to surrealism and Flemish Baroque as well as drama and contemporary dance, a visual artist creating sculptures and installations, a great designer and also performing artist and author.

Jan Fabre has designed a “customized” exhibition for the Maeght Foundation. He wanted this exhibition to be spiritual in every sense of the word, at once dreamlike and serious but with the irony of games and a humor in the style of James Ensor. He brings his artistic discoveries into dialogue with those of science and art history.

The highlight of this exhibition is Jan Fabre’s exceptional installation on the outdoor courtyard: five Pietàs, monumental sculptures in white Carrara marble placed on a golden floor, originally made for the church of Santa Maria della Misericordia for the Venice Biennale in 2011.

Jan Fabre is both a “warrior and a servant of beauty.” His work will respond to the beauty of the Foundation, which he considers a major establishment of creation, through his scenography, the beauty of his sculptures where the marble, the whiteness, the opalescence and transparencies will respond to the free associations of his drawings and collages. A dance of thought and body with the elements, other kingdoms and the most surprising fictions will unfold at the foundation.

Jan Fabre was born in 1958 in Antwerp, Belgium, where he lives and works. Internationally recognized artist of the stage and playwright, Jan Fabre has, for over forty years, developed an artistic work using various materials: pencil, Bic ink, blood, tears, beetle elytra, bones, taxidermied animals, Murano glass, bronze and marble. A great designer, Jan Fabre creates sculptures and installations that explore the question of metamorphosis, the dialogue between art and science, the relationship between humans and nature and the question of the artist as a “warrior and servant” of beauty.

Jan Fabre, Exhibition views, Maeght Foundation. © Angelos bvba / Jan Fabre / © Adagp Paris 2018. Photos Roland Michaud / Archives Fondation Maeght.