Wim Delvoye
As a neo-conceptual artist, Wim Delvoye is widely known for his contemporary art, which blurs the boundary between the art of the past and the digital domain of current modern art practice. Wim Delvoye has developed an art form that offers a reinterpretation of artworks from the past while casting a lucid and amused gaze on contemporary society. He explores art history, Gothic cathedrals and 19th-century sculptures, while at the same time revealing the beauty of everyday objects.
The highly ornamental motifs and ornaments are used not so much as decorative references, but as patterns of value and durability in modern times. His ever-growing Gothic Towers were exhibited during the 2009 Venice Biennale along the Grand Canal (Peggy Guggenheim Museum), Musée Rodin (Paris, 2010), Bozar (Brussels, 2010) and the Jing'An Sculpture Park in Shanghai (2012). Another twisted spiral version was displayed in the Louvre pyramid during Delvoye's solo exhibition in 2012. This shows that his taste for the ornamental continues to exist in his exploration of historical spaces, combining history with modernity.
Wim Delvoye's work was exhibited at Documenta IX and the Venice Biennale in 1999. Various emanations of Cloaca were exhibited at MuHKA (Antwerp, Belgium), Migros Museum (Zurich, Switzerland), the Power Plant (Toronto, Canada), New Museum (New York, USA), culminating in the presentation of Cloaca Professional at Tasmania's MONA.
