Jan Fabre
The Years of the Hour Blue
4 May - 28 August 2011

The Picture gallery of the Kunsthistorisches Museum will host an exhibition comprising 40 historical works by the internationally renowned Belgian artist, Jan Fabre (born 1958 in Antwerp). These works belong to his series “The Blue Hour”, and most of them were created between 1986 and 1990. Executed with a blue BIC ballpoint pen, these drawings focus on metamorphosis and rebirth. The drawings – and a selection of three-dimensional objects with surfaces also covered with ballpoint drawings - will be placed in a number of galleries and rooms of the Picture Gallery of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, entering into a dialogue with masterpieces in the KHM’s permanent collection such as Tintoretto’s Susanna and the Elders, Caravaggio’s Man holding Tortoises, and Rubens’ Feast of Venus. In addition, important sculptures by the artist will be displayed in the Entrance Hall and – visible from Maria-Theresien-Square – on the roof of the museum, initiating a fascinating dialogue between the contemporary and the historical, the transient and the eternal.

The works on show are loans from important private collections and international museums such as the Kunstmuseum Basel, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Museum Kiasma in Helsinki, and the Museum of the 21st Century in Kanazawa (Japan).

Kunsthistorisches Museum
Gemäldegalerie
Maria Theresien-Platz
1010 Wien / Vienna