Jan Fabre

The work of all-round artist Jan Fabre has appealed to the imagination for more than thirty years already. In the early 1980s, his legendary stage show Het is theater zoals te verwachten en te voorzien was ('It is theatre as to be expected and foreseen') detonated a bomb under the theatre establishment of the day. Since then, Fabre, whose output also includes visual art and literary compositions, has remained in the cultural limelight. He has exhibited in countless major museums such as the Louvre, the Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, and his work will soon be on show in the State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg. His obsession with the various guises of the human body and the staging of his own self as a character have made his creations world-famous. This book zooms in on the key venue where all this imagination and creativity bubbles up and crystallizes: Troubleyn/Laboratorium, Jan Fabre's workplace on the edge of the Seefhoek, a popular area of Antwerp where the artist grew up. This is where Jan Fabre works with his theatre company Troubleyn on new creations. At the same time, this special building with its eventful history is also a sanctuary where young artists can give shape to their dreams in a professional and stimulating environment. Moreover, Troubleyn/Laboratorium houses a collection of unique integrated artworks by prominent international artists with who Jan Fabre feels a close affinity. This book bears witness to the touching enthusiasm with which these artists have contributed, at the invitation of Jan Fabre, to what Troubleyn/Laboratorium is today: an artists' utopia, a unique sanctuary for the arts.