Koen Vanmechelen's Evolutionary Universe at Teatro dell'architettura Mendrisio

From October 4, 2019 to February 2, 2020, the Teatro dell'architettura in Mendrisio, Switzerland, designed by Mario Botta, presents "The Worth of Life – 1982/2019," a retrospective of Belgian artist Koen Vanmechelen (born 1965 in Sint-Truiden). Curated by Didi Bozzini, the exhibition spans painting, sculpture, installation, print, and photography from the 1980s onward, exploring the interconnections between human, plant, animal, and creative realms. Vanmechelen is known for his "living art" projects, notably LABIOMISTA in a former coal mine in Genk, Belgium, where his Cosmopolitan Chicken Project crossbreeds chickens from different countries to enhance genetic diversity, fertility, immunity, and aesthetic variety. His neo-Baroque iconography features eggs, snakes, scaramazza pearls, and chickens as symbols of biocultural evolution. Vanmechelen recently participated in "FOOD: Bigger than the Plate" at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. Bozzini describes the artist's work as a powerful emotional universe driven by life energy and creative exuberance, where intellectual stimulation arises from aesthetic engagement and the visceral fascination of natural forms transformed into chimeric images.