Koen Vanmechelen
The Cosmopolitan Chicken Project
Belgian artist Koen Vanmechelen is driven by his motto “Every organism is looking for another organism to survive; the same applies to man and chicken”.
Since approximately 10 years Koen Vanmechelen is mainly engaged in his gigantic chicken breeding project, The Cosmopolitan Chicken Project, a worldwide crossbreeding project of different national chicken races. The crossbreeding as the metaphorical quintessence of the dynamic, fertile and creative life and of the peaceful living together of different species and races.
The Cosmopolitan Chicken Project officially starts in 2000, in the small village of Watou, located on the boarder between Belgium and France. As his participation in the exhibition Storm Centers, curated by Jan Hoet, Koen Vanmechelen crossbred the Belgian chicken Mechelse Koekoek (Cuckoo of Malines) with the French pride Poulet de Bresse (1st generation).
The descendants of this crossing, named Mechelse Bresse’s (2nd generation) were at their turn crossbred with a typical English chicken, the English Redcap, to create the Mechelse Redcap (3rd generation). On its turn the Mechelse Redcap was crossbred with the American chicken, the Jersey Giant.
And Koen Vanmechelen went on, he took the project all over the globe. Every new generation of the Cosmopolitan Chicken was each time crossbred to a new chicken race from a different country, often with the support of a local gallery or museum. He thus and subsequently inserted into the genealogical line of the Cosmopolitan Chicken Project the German Dresdner Huhn, the Dutch Owlbeard, the Mexican Louisiana, the Thai Fighter, the Brazilian Auracana, the Turkish Denizli Longcrower, the Cuban Kubalaya, the Italian Ancona, and today he is crossbreeding the Mechelse Ancona with the Russian Orloff chicken, to create the 13th generation of the Cosmopolitan Chicken, the Mechelse Orloff.
For the 3rd Moscow Biennale Koen Vanmechelen conceived a three part installation: a series of stuffed animals represents the foregoing generations, the caged living animals that will provide the 13th generation, and the up-to-date STAMBOOM of the Cosmopolitan Chicken Project.
As an ongoing work in progress, the Cosmopolitan Chicken Project is an artistic and aesthetic project that touches a lot of contemporary social issues such as genetic manipulation, cloning, globalization, multiracialism, multicultural society etc.
Although the artist has a lot of inspiring contacts with the medical and scientific world, the Cosmopolitan Chicken Project has found his ideal setting in the art world.
From the project spring great sculptures, photographs, drawings, installations and videos.
For the 3rd Moscow Biennale Koen Vanmechelen conceived a three part installation: a series of stuffed animals represents the foregoing generations, the caged living animals that will provide the 13th generation, and the up-to-date pedigree of the Cosmopolitan Chicken Project.
As an ongoing work in progress, the Cosmopolitan Chicken Project is an artistic and aesthetic project that touches a lot of contemporary social issues such as genetic manipulation, cloning, globalization, multiracialism, multicultural society etc. Although the artist has a lot of inspiring contacts with the medical and scientific world, the Cosmopolitan Chicken Project has found his ideal setting in the art world. From the project spring great sculptures, photographs, drawings, installations and videos.