In Vetro – C.C.P., Museum to Scale, University Antwerp

The Museum to Scale in University Antwerp spans over a hundred ‘rooms’ with original work from contemporary Belgian artists, from paintings to complete installations. A number of thematic 'mini-rooms' situates the entire ensemble within its historical context. In one of these rooms the artwork of artist Koen Vanmechelen can be found as well; In Vetro - C.C.P.

Contemporary Wunderkammer

This permanent exhibition in the University of Antwerp is a contemporary version of the Wunderkammer, the forerunners of the modern museum. A variant on the art-cabinet, a showcase where collectors would present their wide-ranging assortment of objects of wonder, from miniatures to fossils. 

In Vetro - C.C.P.

The Wunderkammer is a microcosm or theater of the world. So is the large glass egg at the center of Koen Vanmechelen's mini-museum or cage. A 21st-century Holophusikon for learning and enjoyment. The transparent egg is one of the five elements that make up the installation 'In Vetro - C.C.P.'. Vetro, Italian for glass, strings together many connotations that run like a thread through Vanmechelen's oeuvre: fragility, transparency, fertility (In Vitro) and the tension between now and later, between visible and invisible. C.C.P. stands for Cosmopolitan Chicken Project, Koen Vanmechelen's world-renowned biocultural monument-in-progress.

'In Vetro - C.C.P.' is a composition of two sculptures, three Lambda prints on plexi against the back wall and a top door. The central glass egg is bordered by a ring of silver chicken legs. The prints feature the artist's own idyosyncratic chicken species, the provisional endpoint of the C.C.P. as well as the first, original chicken species. The Red Junglefowl uppers is the animal from which the thousands of existing chicken species are descended. The primal chicken.

The Museum to Scale is the elaboration of an idea first conceived by Ronny Van de Velde and realized by Galerie Ronny Van de Velde in close collaboration with the artists involved. The Museum to Scale has been exhibited at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts in Brussels, the Baker Museum in Naples (Florida), as well as at Rotterdam’s Kunsthal and the Fondazione Ghisla in Locarno. The common connection running through the first 54 rooms - now permanently on view at Antwerp University.

Exhibition info

In Vetro — C.C.P.

University Antwerp

Stadscampus - Building R

Rodestraat 14

2000 Antwerp

Belgium

More info