The large-scale exhibition "Jan Fabre: Knight despair - Beauty Warrior" opens today at the Hermitage

The large-scale exhibition "Jan Fabre: Knight despair - Beauty Warrior" opened at the Hermitage on Friday, the museum says.

Jan Fabre - one of the most famous contemporary artists. As emphasized by the artist himself, his art is rooted in the classical tradition of Flemish painting, and the main sources of his inspiration - Peter Paul Rubens and Jacob Jordaens. Jan Fabre, grandson of the famous entomologist, widely used animal world aesthetics. To create his works, he uses unusual materials - shells of beetles, skeletons, horns, stuffed animals, and blood and blue ink ballpoint pen BIC.

"Through his works he tries to loud and tangible to talk about life and death, physical and social metamorphosis and the nature of the cruelty inherent in both the animal and human world," - said in a statement.

The idea of ​​the exhibition in the Hermitage there after creating Fabre temporary exhibition in the halls of the Flemish and Dutch schools of painting in the Louvre. Especially for the exhibition "Jan Fabre: Knight despair - Beauty Warrior" at the Hermitage, with more than two hundred exhibits, the artist created a series of new works. His works on the exhibition are part of the permanent exhibition of the Hermitage, and enter into a dialogue with recognized masterpieces of world art. "In the spaces of the Hermitage halls of the" sketch "grows into a monumental artistic event, which is of great interest and a great deal of controversy, which is becoming a platform for the next-intellectual marathon discussion", - noted in the museum.

The exhibition also prepared a special educational program which includes film screenings, lectures and master classes, panel discussions. Thus, the exhibition will be shown eight films, including the film-performance, filmed in June of this year with the participation of the artist, who walked in the knight armor at the Winter Palace.

The exhibition "Jan Fabre: Knight despair - Beauty Warrior" will be open to the public from October 22, 2016 to April 9, 2017.

Jan Fabre was born in Antverpene in 1958; grandson of the famous entomologist Jean-Henri Fabre, author of the book "Life of insects." He studied at the Municipal Institute of Decorative Arts and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. Fabre - one of the most versatile artists. It is not only the director of the theater, opera and ballet, choreographer, author and stage designer, but also a visual artist. His visual work consists mainly of paintings, sculptures, films and installations. The world of insects, the human body and the strategy of the war - the three central themes, which he uses in his work.