JAN FABRE (Antwerp, Belgium, 1958). "C'ôte D'Ôr, A Tribute to Begian Congo", 2010. Collage (jewel beetle wings) on wood. Attached certificate signed by Guy Pieters. Measurements: 218 x 165 cm; 228 x 175 x 8 cm (frame). "Gold Coast" refers us to an Edenic and unreal place guarded by an elephant, an animal linked to good fortune in all cultures. Jan Fabre has used beetle wings to create a subjugating tapestry. Beetle wings are a recurring motif in Fabre's work. They symbolize ideas linked to metamorphosis, spiritual transformation, beauty and the ephemeral nature of life. As for the Edenic theme, the artist often raises with a variety of language the possibility of utopia. Jan Fabre is a playwright, stage director, choreographer and visual artist. He studied at the Municipal Institute of Decorative Arts in Antwerp and at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. Between 1976 and 1980 he wrote his first texts for the theater. In 1978 he made drawings with his own blood during the solo performance My Body, My Blood, My Landscape. In 1980 he made the "Bic-Art Room", as an opposition to "Big Art"; he locked himself for three days and three nights in a white cube filled with objects, drawing with blue Bic pens. In 1986 he founded Troubleyn/Jan Fabre, a theater company with extensive international projection. He has been a member of the Royal Flemish Academy of Sciences and Arts of Belgium since 1998 and is a Commander of the Order of Leopold II. In 2008, The Angel of Metamorphosis was exhibited at the Louvre Museum, an exhibition inaugurated by Queen Paola of Belgium. He decorated the ceiling of the Hall of Mirrors of the Royal Palace in Brussels, which he called Heaven of Delights, made of 1600,000 beetle-beetle elytra, which has been widely praised. He also made Totem, a sculpture of a giant insect pierced by a huge twenty-three-meter steel spire, at the Ladeuzeplein in Leuven. The sculpture was erected in 2005 to commemorate the 575th anniversary of the historic Leuven University Library.