Jan Fabián: Konstatovat - výstava v Galerii VI PER
Curator: Barbora Špičáková
The VI PER Gallery cordially invites you to the opening of an exhibition by conceptual artist, architect, and builder Jan Fabián, which presents the diverse possibilities of architectural work, distinct approaches in thinking, designing, and creation. The exhibition intertwines issues of the urban environment, the gradual abandonment of established forms, and the confrontation of entrenched socio-aesthetic "stigmas."
Jan Fabián often addresses public space, urban environments, the sustainability of materials used, and construction methods in his installations. Many of his installations take the form of active interventions. Alongside free projects and design proposals, Jan Fabián also focuses on architecture itself. He designs and implements renovations of interiors, new buildings, and reconstructions of garden objects, cabins, and houses. He approaches architecture from the initial design to complete realization, both of which hold equally important significance and influence each other. The integration of original, reused, or found materials, which Fabián collects, plays an important role even in the design phase. Sustainability is not just a proclamation for him; it comes naturally to him and corresponds to the very need to personally realize individual designs in detail.
Abandoning Established Forms
While Jan Fabián's architecture maintains a clear aesthetic form, the opposite is true for his looser projects over time. It is as if he cannot escape the temptation to create from what he has at hand, what is left over, what is of no use, with the aim of overcoming established forms and building in his own way. He creates objects from scraps of drywall, broken particle board, snippets of nets, broken boards, sheet metal, rubble, or plastic sheeting. These are at first glance wretched materials and spaces that provoke with their poverty and primitiveness. In his installation for the VI PER Gallery, Jan Fabián experiments with rearranging spatial stereotypes and probing the boundaries of using construction waste. He builds and breaks barriers, partitions space, seeks original reconstructions, and rearranges materials. He engages in a struggle with established orders of gallery operations, extending out from the gallery onto the facade and significantly entering the urban environment itself. This conceptualized space can be viewed as a contrast and stimulating dialogue with his architectural realizations.
Urban Environment
The theme of urban environments, how and with whom to actually live in them, has long interested Jan Fabián. He places charred torsos of thuja in the street in front of the VI PER Gallery. These are the result of the activities of an unidentified arsonist from South Bohemia, who has several burned hedges of thuja to his name. While this is an absolute excess, it becomes a significant challenge for Jan Fabián. As he says, he is tempted to use artifacts – "phenomena" – that he did not personally select but received prompts about from friends. Now, the opportunity arises to use them. Thuja, a typical phenomenon of cultivated gardens, had grown for many years along a wire fence, which had deformed them. Jan Fabián moves them to a Prague street, creating an apocalyptic front garden of burnt plants, dead greenery, the devastation of the urban environment. A similar impulse came from discarded windows from an apartment building under Vyšehrad in Prague. Jan Fabián considers windows to be typical carriers of urban structure; he has been working with them for a long time, having dozens in stock. Now, he is returning them to the streets through constructions made of windows and old slats.
Jan Fabián (*1978, České Budějovice) graduated in 2003 from the AAAD in Prague in the Glass in Architecture studio under Prof. Marian Karl. He completed internships in Finland (2000) and at the Rhode Island School of Design in the USA (2001). Even during his studies, he began designing and implementing renovations of interiors alongside design and installations, gradually adding larger projects to smaller ones. He regularly exhibits, often creating installations that enter public spaces. Since 2014, he has been teaching at the Department of Fine Arts at the Faculty of Architecture CTU in Prague. He is currently completing his doctoral studies in visual communication at the Faculty of Art and Design of the University of J. E. Purkyně in Ústí nad Labem.
The VI PER Gallery cordially invites you to the opening of an exhibition by conceptual artist, architect, and builder Jan Fabián, which presents the diverse possibilities of architectural work, distinct approaches in thinking, designing, and creation. The exhibition intertwines issues of the urban environment, the gradual abandonment of established forms, and the confrontation of entrenched socio-aesthetic "stigmas."
Jan Fabián often addresses public space, urban environments, the sustainability of materials used, and construction methods in his installations. Many of his installations take the form of active interventions. Alongside free projects and design proposals, Jan Fabián also focuses on architecture itself. He designs and implements renovations of interiors, new buildings, and reconstructions of garden objects, cabins, and houses. He approaches architecture from the initial design to complete realization, both of which hold equally important significance and influence each other. The integration of original, reused, or found materials, which Fabián collects, plays an important role even in the design phase. Sustainability is not just a proclamation for him; it comes naturally to him and corresponds to the very need to personally realize individual designs in detail.
Abandoning Established Forms
While Jan Fabián's architecture maintains a clear aesthetic form, the opposite is true for his looser projects over time. It is as if he cannot escape the temptation to create from what he has at hand, what is left over, what is of no use, with the aim of overcoming established forms and building in his own way. He creates objects from scraps of drywall, broken particle board, snippets of nets, broken boards, sheet metal, rubble, or plastic sheeting. These are at first glance wretched materials and spaces that provoke with their poverty and primitiveness. In his installation for the VI PER Gallery, Jan Fabián experiments with rearranging spatial stereotypes and probing the boundaries of using construction waste. He builds and breaks barriers, partitions space, seeks original reconstructions, and rearranges materials. He engages in a struggle with established orders of gallery operations, extending out from the gallery onto the facade and significantly entering the urban environment itself. This conceptualized space can be viewed as a contrast and stimulating dialogue with his architectural realizations.
Urban Environment
The theme of urban environments, how and with whom to actually live in them, has long interested Jan Fabián. He places charred torsos of thuja in the street in front of the VI PER Gallery. These are the result of the activities of an unidentified arsonist from South Bohemia, who has several burned hedges of thuja to his name. While this is an absolute excess, it becomes a significant challenge for Jan Fabián. As he says, he is tempted to use artifacts – "phenomena" – that he did not personally select but received prompts about from friends. Now, the opportunity arises to use them. Thuja, a typical phenomenon of cultivated gardens, had grown for many years along a wire fence, which had deformed them. Jan Fabián moves them to a Prague street, creating an apocalyptic front garden of burnt plants, dead greenery, the devastation of the urban environment. A similar impulse came from discarded windows from an apartment building under Vyšehrad in Prague. Jan Fabián considers windows to be typical carriers of urban structure; he has been working with them for a long time, having dozens in stock. Now, he is returning them to the streets through constructions made of windows and old slats.
Jan Fabián (*1978, České Budějovice) graduated in 2003 from the AAAD in Prague in the Glass in Architecture studio under Prof. Marian Karl. He completed internships in Finland (2000) and at the Rhode Island School of Design in the USA (2001). Even during his studies, he began designing and implementing renovations of interiors alongside design and installations, gradually adding larger projects to smaller ones. He regularly exhibits, often creating installations that enter public spaces. Since 2014, he has been teaching at the Department of Fine Arts at the Faculty of Architecture CTU in Prague. He is currently completing his doctoral studies in visual communication at the Faculty of Art and Design of the University of J. E. Purkyně in Ústí nad Labem.
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