For the opening of its new Parisian addition, Galerie Templon offers Carte Blanche to the artist Jan Fabre. True to its commitment to its artists, the gallery is inaugurating a new chapter in its history by giving this great multi-disciplinary creator complete curatorial freedom for the new space. Jan Fabre will be creating a unique body of work exploring his views of the complex and singular Belgian identity. 

The exhibition brings together a variety of media - drawings, sculptures – conceived especially for Templon’s new location 250 m2 exhibition space.

Over the last 30 years, Jan Fabre has become internationally recognized as one of the most innovative visual artists, playwrights and writers of his generation. Galerie Templon has been representing him since 2000, and has contributed to the recognition of his visual arts practice. The gallery is happy to entrust the keys of its new space to this accomplished artist who pushes the boundaries of the arts, and explores all disciplines of knowledge and creation.

Sexual Belgian Folklore and Sexual Belgian North Sea are the two parts of Jan Fabre’s new show, conceived as a critical, humorous and loving tribute to his native country, known for its surreal approach to life. The two multimedia series explore the complex Belgian identity taking the viewers through a lively and crazy journey through its cultural heritage, exploring how the spheres of festivals, religion, sex and art, overlap and feed into each other.

Around 50 drawings will dialogue with series of sculptures – some of them monumental - made from former church or vernacular objects found in attic sales. The colours and symbolism range from the subtle and serious as found in church art, all the way to the outlandish and garish, as can be seen in Belgium’s carnival and theatre traditions, something Jan Fabre is close to thanks to his career as a stage director. His recently unveiled stage work, ‘Belgian Rules / Belgium Rules’ (2017), also dissects his nationality in order to analyse how it could ‘connect rather than divide’, far from any arrogant or nationalist attempts.

A visual artist and internationally renowned author who has worked in the theatre, Jan Fabre, (born in 1958 in Antwerp where he lives and works), has developed a body of art work over the last thirty years based on a variety of materials, including blood, beetle wings, bones, stuffed animals, marble and blue ballpoint pen ink. Jan Fabre is an inveterate draughtsman, creating sculptures and installations that explore his favourite topics, including metamorphosis, the dialogue between art and science, humankind’s relationship to nature and the artist as a warrior of beauty. Recent remarkable solo exhibitions include his retrospective at the Louvre (L’ange de la metamorphose, 2008) and shows at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, Musée d’Art Moderne in St Etienne (Jan Fabre. Les années de l’heure bleue, 1986 – 1991, 2011) and Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg (2016). The Fondation Maeght in Saint Paul de Vence is presenting a major exhibition of his work from 29 June 2018: My Nation: Imagination