On one hand I find myself inexplicably fascinated by the eery beauty of the dead animals and the wunderkammer-like dreamworld they live their post-mortem lives in.
On the other hand: it's dead animals. Dead. Animals we killed and made pretty to look at. (Yes, I know plenty of the animals probably died of natural causes, but we'll never be able to tell for certain, will we?)
I'll not get into this any deeper as I honestly don't know how I feel, plus this is not the actual topic of this blogpost. (If you want to read more about taxidermy in contemporary art, read this article I found on Art Info)
What I actually wanted to share with you is this:
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| Duimvogel (thumb-bird) by Peter Zwaan Photograph taken at the Raw Art fair with my Iphone |
Last week-end at the Raw Art Fair in Rotterdam I couldn't stop staring at this 'Duimvogel' (thumb-bird) by Peter Zwaan, a Rotterdam (or Den Haag?) based artist represented by Contempo Gallery.
After seeing this, you'll probably understand why I started out this post the way I did. Peter Zwaans' wall creatures show some similarities to taxidermy animals and share the wunderkammer-natural-dreamworld feel that most contemporary taxidermy artpieces radiate.
But Peter Zwaans creatures are so much more and -obviously- not made of dead animals.
The surrealism in his work is done so thoroughly realistic that you can't help but to want to believe birds like this exist somewhere. Your head automatically creates images of thumb-bird flocks flying over the Rotterdam harbour or sitting in a tree near your house. (I would love that, although it might be kinda creepy too).
At the art fair I spent a lot of time staring at this artwork. I even went back to it a few times, dragging along my friends because I felt the need to share this beauty with them. (I can get very messiah-like when I really really like something)
The gallery-owner noticed my enthusiasm (it would have been hard to miss), and kindly showed me some other Peter Zwaan works.
I'll stop with the words now, to just show you this:
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| Small humanfish, 2006 polyester, polyurethane, acrylic, aluminiumleaf, hair 24x6x3 cm Photograph courtesy of peterzwaan.nl |
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| Small humanfish 2nd generation, 2008 siliconen, polyester, acrylic, polyurethane, human hair 23x7x3 cm Photograph courtesy of peterzwaan.nl |
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| Small skin-finned humanfish, 2008 silicone, polyester, acrylic, polyurethane, human hair 26x12x3 cm Photograph courtesy of peterzwaan.nl |
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| Indexmutation, 2008 silicone and human hair 31x13x3 cm Photograph courtesy of peterzwaan.nl |
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| Humane fishblock, 2009 silicone, polyester, polyurethane, acrylic, horsehair 53x100x15 cm Photograph courtesy of peterzwaan.nl |
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| Forbidden fruit, 2010 (1/8) series of 8 individually unique works silicone, epoxy, acrylic, human hair 8x8x8 cm Photograph courtesy of peterzwaan.nl |
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| Young scissors, 2009 silicone, polyester, polyurethane, acrylic, human hair, parts of scissors 10x27x4 cm Photograph courtesy of peterzwaan.nl |
Yes, you are right, all these artworks together on 1 page might be a bit much. But I would absolutely love (did I say 'love'? - I'm sorry, I meant LOVE) to have one of his creatures come living at a wall in my house one day.
