Jan Fabre, born in 1958 in Antwerp (Belgium), studied at the Municipal Institute of Art and Design and the Royal Academy of Art, both in his home town. In 1980, at the age of 22, he directed Theater geschreven met een K is een Kater, his first play. In 1990, after three years' preparation, he directed his first long opera Das Glas im Kopf wird vom Glas, to music – commissioned by Gérard Mortier – by Polish composer Eugeniusz Knapik. In December of the same year he presented the long dance work The Sound of one Hand Clapping, with music by Knapik, Zimmermann and The Doors and 36 dancers from the Frankfurt ballet. In addition to his stage pieces, his work in the visual arts had earned him a steadily increasing international reputation. He is also an associate artist at the Avignon festival in 2005.
The eye of the Theatre Director and the eye of the Photographer: Looking is never solely a visual affair, for it is above all an approach to observation. The camera lens makes things even clearer: if we look at the photos of Fabre with all the inductive force of photography, we have photographs that show everything. The camera is placed in such a way as to be able to capture the image of the stage as accurately as possible; to be more precise, the camera reveals the eye of the "ideal spectator" – of the person who creates the work of art's way of looking at the spectator/director.