OTEGEM.- With the exhibition ‘Jan Fabre - Vanitas Vanitatum, Omnia Vanitas’ (Vanity of vanities, all is vanity), Deweer Gallery presents an exclusive preview of a new series of mosaic works by Jan Fabre. A selection of these works will only be shown again in the great exhibition ‘Jan Fabre – Knight of Despair / Warrior of Beauty’ which will run from October 21, 2016 to April 9, 2017 in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia. In the Hermitage, the new mosaics will come to be installed in the halls of the 17th-century Flemish painting, for example in an area normally reserved for the paintings of Jacob Jordaens (Antwerp, 1593-1678).

Vanity and fidelity are the two major themes in this new and impressive series. Two themes that are common to the Flemish art from the 16th and 17th centuries too. Abstract concepts such as vanity (vanitas) and fidelity are represented in historical iconography through a variety of symbols. A skull and by extension the whole skeleton, an extinguished candle, wilted flowers, a clock, an overturned glass, they all symbolize vanity through transience. The dog, in turn, symbolizes fidelity, loyalty, devotion, and even subservience. In combination with a plethora of images that depict the uninhibited, purely instinctive behaviour of dogs (copulating in the street, appropriating territory by lifting a leg against anything and everything, smelling and licking everything...) we soon understand that the symbol of the dog also stands for everything man deems beneath his dignity. The vanity motif is a common recurring theme in Jan Fabre’s visual and theatrical oeuvre; it is indeed not the first time that the artist uses dogs or actors that imitate dogs in his work. In short, it is not surprising that, here again, Fabre makes generous use of these motifs. Fabre, in depicting dogs playing with a skeleton or dogs presenting a clock under the motto ‘Adsum, qui feci’ (Here I am, (the one) who did it), to mention only these examples, portrays his vision of the transience of earthly life in a very penetrating manner: man must commit himself to ideals that transcend the temporal, such as Beauty. Anything else is irrelevant. Technically, the Fabre mosaics are realized with thousands of iridescent wings of the green jewel beetle, just as in the work ‘Heaven of Delight’ (2002) which was installed on the ceiling of one of the rooms of the Royal Palace in Brussels, and Fabre’s series ‘Tribute to Hieronymus Bosch in Congo’ (2011-2013) and ‘Tribute to Belgian Congo’ (2010-2013), which were shown in 2014 at the Pinchuk Art Centre in Kiev, Ukraine.

Jan Fabre (° Antwerp, 1958) has participated in important group exhibitions, including the Venice Biennale (1984, 1990, 2003, 2009 and 2011), Documenta Kassel (1982 and 1992), and the Biennials of São Paulo, Lyon, Valencia and Istanbul.

He further had large individual exhibitions in leading museums and institutions worldwide, such as the M HKA, Antwerp (‘Stigmata. Actions & Performances 1976-2013’, 2015), the Pinchuk Art Centre, Kiev, Ukraine (‘Tribute to Hiëronymus Bosch (2011-2013) & Tribute to Belgian Congo (2010-2013)’, 2014), the Busan Museum of Art, Busan, South Korea (‘The Years of the Hour Blue / Drawings & Sculptures 1977-1992’, 2013-2014), the MAXXI, Rome (‘Stigmata. Actions & Performances 1976-2013’, 2013-2014), the Musée d’Art Moderne Saint-Etienne, France (‘Les Années de l’Heure Bleu – Dessins et Sculptures 1977-1992’, 2012), the Kunsthistorisches Museum of Vienna, Austria (‘Die Jahre der blauen Stunde’, 2011), the Kröller-Müller Museum Otterlo, The Netherlands (‘Hortus/Corpus’, 2011), the Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria (‘From the Cellar to the Attic / From the Feet to the Brain’, 2008) and the Musée du Louvre, Paris, France (‘L’Ange de la Métamorphose’, 2008).

Deweer Gallery closely follows, presents and documents the different developments in Jan Fabre’s visual arts since 1985.

The exhibition ‘Jan Fabre – Vanitas Vanitatum, Omnia Vanitas’ is the artist’s 10th solo show with Deweer Gallery.

Jan Fabre currently shows with ‘Spiritual Guards’ on different locations in Florence, Italy. Thereafter, but still in 2016, will follow THE solo exhibitions ‘Jan Fabre - Tribute to Hieronymus Bosch in Congo’ (Noordbrabants Museum, ‘s Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands), ‘Jan Fabre – Stigmata. Performances & Actions 1976-2013’ (MAC – Musée d’Art Contemporain de Lyon) and ‘Jan Fabre – Knight of despair / Warrior of Beauty’ (The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia).