Wim Delvoye 

1965, Belgium

Delvoye appropriates and diverts art-historical styles and motifs to sublimate trivial yet rather unconventional objects, or sometimes even living subjects. Perhaps best known for naturalizing tattooed pigs in China, or mechanically replicating the digestive system to produce real feces within exhibition spaces, his very eclectic and subversive practice spans a wide range of mediums, including drawing, sculpture and installation. Constantly oscillating between antagonistic realms such as the sacred and the profane, or the local and the global, he sarcastically confronts the various myths that feed our contemporary society from religion to science, and capitalism via unexpected hybridization. Whether he twists the inkblots of Rorschach psychological tests into sleek bronze idols, or cement trucks into laser-cut steel neo-gothic cathedrals, most of his works implement expert craftsmanship along with high technology. Wim Delvoye’s ever-shifting, conceptual-adjacent aesthetics further questions the commodification of art by strategically and provocatively escaping any attempt at definitive categorization or labeling.