Jan Fabre (Antwerp, 1958) is renowned at home and abroad as one of the most innovative and versatile artists of his generation. Over the past 30 years he has established himself as a performance artist, theatre maker, choreographer, creator of operas, playwright and visual artist. In every discipline he engages in, he stretches the boundaries – in all those years his artistic vision has been constant. Fabre studied at the Koninklijke Academie voor Schone Kunsten (Royal Academy of Fine Arts) and the Stedelijk Instituut voor Sierkunsten en Ambachten (Municipal Institute of Decorative Arts) in Antwerp. All of Fabre's works refer in one way or another to a belief in the vulnerable body and the defence of it; and scrutinising mankind and questioning how it will survive in the future. Over the years he has developed his own universe with its own laws and rules, recurring characters, symbols and motives. In 2007 he created the installation Ik spuw op mijn eigen graf (I spit on my own grave) for the Venice Biennale. In 2008 he created thirty large installations for the Louvre, as a response to the Flemish, Dutch and German masters in the Richelieu Wing. In 2011, Fabre's works were on show in an extensive exhibition at the Dutch Kröller-Müller Museum. Fabre's oeuvre has been awarded many prizes, including the Prijs van de Vlaamse Gemeenschap voor Beeldende Kunst 1992 (Prize of the Flemish Community for Fine Arts), the Premio Pino Pascali by the Museo d'Arte Contemporanea Polignano a Mare in Bari in 2008, and the International Arts Award of the Cristóbal Gabarrón Foundation in Valladolid in 2009. That same year he received an honorary doctorate of the University of Antwerp. Fabre was made Grand Officer in the Belgian Order of the Crown in 2004 and Commander in the Order of Leopold in 2007.

In the late 1970's the young Fabre was very successful as a performance artist; in his Money performances he would set fire to stacks of money from the audience and create drawings with the ashes. In 1980 he directed the first of his many theatre performances, Theater geschreven met een K is een kater. He had his international break-through with two marathon performances in 1982 and 1984: Het is theater zoals te verwachten en te voorzien was (It's theatre as could be expected and foreseen), and De Macht der theaterlijke dwaasheden (The power of theatrical madness), both of which, with a new cast, have returned as part of the repertoire. Fabre still explores and breaks the codes of contemporary theatre by introducing real time performances – sometimes called living installations. Also in dance, he continues to forge ahead scrutinising the medium in order to enrich its choreographic possibilities.