As in previous years, the Denmark Biennale is a tribute to the Italian artist Piero Manzoni (1933-63), the provocateur whose epoch-making work Socle du Monde (Base of the World) from 1961 lends its name to the Biennale. HEART owns the largest public collection of Manzoni works in the world.
The 2017 version of Socle du Monde Biennale is subtitled: To challenge the Earth, the Moon, the Sun & the Stars. Not only a tribute to Manzoni, it pays homage to all great artists, before and after, who accepted the challenge of turning our world upside down. No less than 50 artists expected to take part: artist icons and the rising stars of tomorrow.
The Socle du Monde Biennale will be edging the quality a notch upwards in 2017, curated by a number of internationally renowned curators including Olivier Varenne, Jean-Hubert Martin, Daniel Birnbaum and Maria Finders and headed by Mattijs Visser. Vanmechelen is presenting his Planetary Community Chicken project. With this installation, the artist adds other, powerful dimensions to Manzoni’s 70 Eggs with Thumbprint, a series of marked eggs. In a tryptic, Vanmechelen presents a global project; it hungers for science and anthropology. It is crucial; it deals with the themes of identity and diversity. Central is the birth of the CC2017, the result between the crossing of the Mechelse Danish – CCP21 and a local commercial chicken. Visitors become an active part of the global chain of life.
After the exhibition at HEART, Beyond Coffee will take care of Koen Vanmechelen’s new Planetary Community Chickens. In Copenhagen, they will become free-range chickens for the duration of their natural lives, and exist as part of our circular urban mushroom farm. At present, Beyond Coffee is growing organic oyster mushrooms from collected coffee grounds (we collect 1.5 tons a month in Copenhagen). Our waste material after harvest is a protein-rich substrate that we feed to mealworms. The chickens will live on a continuous diet of mealworms and other foraged organic waste.
The Planetary Community Chickens represent a marriage between the global and the local. Their genetic mix offers up new resilience and greater strength to local flocks. Through their arrival at our farm, the Planetary Community Chickens will play a key role in the development of a new, low-input and socially-responsible means of food production and waste management Their diversity is at the center of our search for sustainability, as they become central to our everyday lives. The chickens are left to forage, and, over time, we, the communities around them are also enriched. Art becomes reality and this reality fuels art.
Exhibition Facts
21 April ➔ 27 August 2017
Official opening – 21 April 2017
Preview – 18, 19, 20 April 2017
Place: The 2017 Socle Du Monde Biennial takes place at HEART – Herning Museum of Contemporary Art, Herning Højskole, Carl-Henning Pedersen & Else Alfelt’s Museum, The Geometric Gardens and HEART’s Sculpture Park.
