Koen Vanmechelen debuts in Cape Town with a provocative exhibition

With the grandeur of one of nature’s pièces de resistance standing sentinel as a mountainous backdrop, Koen Vanmechelen’s Cosmopolitan Renaissance unfolded at an exclusive preview in Zenview House, Hout Bay — private residence of Katherina Bach.

An artist who has long blurred the lines between biology and art, identity and evolution, Vanmechelen presented a body of work that challenges, provokes and inspires.

The Belgian artist has spent over two decades exploring biocultural diversity through his multidisciplinary work. His projects, which merge art, science and philosophy, have been exhibited worldwide, from the Victoria & Albert Museum in London to the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Havana. Now, his Cosmopolitan Renaissance has arrived in Cape Town, bringing with it a conversation that resonates deeply within the SA context.

His Cosmopolitan Chicken Project in particular — now in its 29th generation — has become a living metaphor for hybridity, resilience, and evolution. Vanmechelen’s Cosmopolitan Renaissance arrives not as a mere exhibition but as a provocation — a challenge to how his audience might think about identity and heritage. The exhibition feels less like a conventional gallery experience and more like an intellectual hatching ground — an incubation of ideas deeply relevant to SA’s layered cultural history.

At Zenview House, guests were immersed in an ecosystem of mixed media — sculptures, paintings, video installations and performances — all forming a narrative about the human condition.

With activist, academic and former anti-apartheid leader Dr Mamphela Ramphele in attendance, albeit briefly, the exhibition had an added air of intellectual gravitas. It pulsated with the idea that identity is never fixed but in constant negotiation with the world around it.

What does it mean to belong? What happens when cultures collide and coalesce?

These are the questions Vanmechelen poses, not with didacticism but with artistic sensitivity.

The exhibition features 14 key pieces, all circling themes of evolution, transformation and the interconnectedness of humanity. Works such as Crossbreeding, which is a marble turtle with an egg as a head, and The Eggcord, with its glass eggs suspended on steel cables, may resonate with the idea of incubation in a country still reckoning with its own fragile progress. The egg, a recurring motif in Vanmechelen’s work, holds particular weight in this context. It portrays potential and vulnerability all at once, a container of life and crucially, of change.

And then, of course, there’s the chicken — a bird few would associate with grandeur, let alone affluence. Its unexpected prominence in such a prestigious setting is perhaps symbolic of the Belgian artist’s own subversive oeuvre. It’s not the eagle, the peacock, the swan or even the mythical phoenix; yet in Vanmechelen’s hands, the humble chicken takes centre stage, commanding attention in a setting where one might expect more ostentatious symbols of creative prowess.

“Crossing, cross-movement, biological crossing... these themes resonate deeply in my work,” Vanmechelen said. “It may sound unusual, but it reflects intercultural meetings and the need to avoid inbreeding in our globalised world.”

The language of “inbreeding” vs hybridity, of stagnation vs evolution, feels particularly poignant in SA. The country’s history is one of forced separations and rigid borders — physical, cultural and ideological. Vanmechelen’s work, by contrast, speaks to the necessity of movement, mixing and the breaking down of barriers, whether genetic or societal.

Although Vanmechelen has a deep connection with Africa, this is his first exhibition in Cape Town. The Western Cape, a province with its own complex history of cultural convergence, therefore proves a fitting host for Vanmechelen’s work.

“In Africa, there is an undeniable sense of hope,” he said. “As an artist, my journey began at the most sensational galleries, but that’s not my path. I seek a delicate and fragile way of [intermingling] ideas, fostering growth without resorting to mere sensationalism.”

Through works like Under My Skin — a portrait of his wife and social entrepreneur Chido Govera — his work also pushes into the realm of healing, focusing on the reimagining of Medusa not as a symbol of danger but of transformation.

“An artist must first heal himself before contributing to the world,” Vanmechelen said. The Medusa, often a cautionary figure meant to instil fear — is reimagined by Vanmechelen with the addition of chicken heads here, positioning her as a visual counterargument that suggests that what we perceive as a threat may actually hold the key to renewal.

As the evening at Zenview House progressed, it became evident that Vanmechelen’s work does not necessarily seek to answer grand existential questions, but rather to illuminate them, leaving them open-ended and fertile for thought.

The exhibition continues throughout February at Zenview House, Hout Bay, Cape Town.