Pigs in the Louvre Automatic translate

The controversial Belgian artist Wim Delvoye presented an amazing and unique exhibition, which is a dialogue of classical and contemporary art.

Exhibition of Wim Delvoy, a pig in one of the rooms of Napoleon III

Pigs in a nineteenth-century room, decorative stucco, crunching, gilding, aristocratic furniture, antique tapestries… This is what happens when one of the oldest art institutions in the world opens its doors to the creator of Cloak, a waste machine. Despite sarcastic ridicule, the artist claims that in this way he shows respect and fidelity to the classical cultural heritage, as opposed to the emptiness and lightness of modern art.

When such a venerable institution as The louvre museum invites contemporary artists with a controversial reputation to present their creations, this always causes heated discussions. Aesthetic blasphemy is for some, a dialogue of times and customs is for others. Similar exhibitions have already been held several times, for example, Jeff Koons (2008) and Takeshi Murakami (2010) at Versailles, Tony Cragg, JanFabr, Anselm Kiefer and Joseph Kossuth in the Louvre.

Wim Delvoye would have been just one more from an endless list, if not for his reputation, going ahead of him. In 2000, he built Cloac, a machine that with cold precision reproduces the entire human digestive tract, including the final product. After that, the artist incurred the wrath of the Association for the Protection of Animals by performing his paintings by tattooing the skins of pigs raised on his farm before selling them. Swiss Tim Steiner allowed Delvoy to apply a tattoo on his back, after which he sold the work for 150,000 to a Euro-private collector who would receive some of his skin with a tattoo after his death.

Anna Sidorova