Jan Fabre .- The Escape of the Artist

08/Nov/2008 - 06/Dec/2008

Only a few months after closing the impressive exhibition at the Louvre titled Jan Fabre. L’Ange de la métamorphose, Belgian artist JAN FABRE opens his third solo-show at Espacio Minimo Gallery titled The Escape of the Artist. This show also coincides with his entirely new exhibition titled From the Cellar to the Attic From the Feet to the Brain at the Bregenz Kunsthaus in Austria.

JAN FABRE´s exhibition is centred around a series of 8 photographs taken during his performance at the Louvre, titled Homage to Jacques Mesrine (Art Kept Me Out of Jail). Louvre 2008. The show also includes a disquieting sculpture, a new series of drawings, and his latest video work, Art kept me out of jail/ homage to Jacques Mesrine, which also documents the performance at the Louvre.

The subject of the photographs and the performance are the figure of the famous thief, smuggler, murderer, and above all fugitive Jacques Mesrine, who came to be considered Public Enemy number one of France and was known to the press and public as The Man of a Hundred Faces. Jacques Mesrine became famous, apart from his other crimes, for his incredible and unexplainable escapes.

Mesrine´s personality becomes the artist´s excuse to delve into one of his most prominent obsessions, that of metamorphosis, which he has previously investigated through the ability of transformation that some animals have, becoming and entirely different being during their lifetime.

The sculpture, a disturbing self-portrait with four faces, along with the new series of drawings and the video, are all self portraits in which the artist appears camouflaged, transfigured, and metamorphosed into someone else, always different to himself.

JAN FABRE´s (Antwerp, Belgium, 1958) Works are to be found in some of the most important museums and collections of the world, both public and private. He has taken part in the most significant manifestations of contemporary art such as Documenta in Kassel (1987 y 1992), the Bienal in Sao Paulo (1991), the Venice Bienale (1984,1990 and 2003), or the Istambul Bienale (1992 and 2001). He has shown individually in distinguished galleries, and the most important museums and public institutions such as the Louvre in París, Migros Museum in Zurich, Kunst Palast in Düsseldorf, Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Bergamo, Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, The Museum of Contemporary Art in Helsinki, Museum of Moderm Art in Ljubljana, Frac Lorraine in Verdun, MUTHA Museum Voor Hedendaagse Kunst in Antwerp, Ludwig Museum in Budapest, Museum of Modern Art in Zagreb, Kunsthalle in Kiel, Haggert Museum of Art in Milwaukee, Splengel Museum in Hannover, Kunsthaus in Bregenz, Kunshalle in Ravenburg, AR/GE Museum in Bozen, Kunshalle in Rostock, Centro d’Arte Moderna in Palermo, Museum of Contemporary Art in Varsovia, Natural History Museum in London, Carré Saint Anne and Jardin de la DRAC in Montpellier, Musée dÁrt Contemporain in Lyon, MIMOCA Museum of Contemporary Art in Marugame, Galerie Beaumont Public in Luxemburgo, Foundation Yvon Lambert/Saint Charles Church in Avignon, Fundación Miró in Barcelona… He has been awarded with Pino Pascali Prize 2008.

http://www.angelos.be/