Convento São Francisco de Mértola
Christiaan Zwanikken Portugal Research Laboratory
The Amsterdam based kinetic artist Christiaan Zwanikken spent many of his formative years at the Convento. Then studied at the Gerrit Rietveldacademie and Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. He restored the old waterwheel and created the Robotic Donkey at the Water Museum. He has several experimental sculptural kinetic installations at the Convento.
Many of his sculptures have been inspired by the animal life around.
Under the original paintings of Rococo cherubs three robot peacocks are caught in conversation. His ‘Tourinho’ is an automated version of a training bull, as used by Portuguese bullfighters when practising, and his dog skulls can chase and dodge each other in an endless game.
A pair of mechanical storks, an earlier version acquired by the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, consists of two skulls mounted on long metal rods. They have computer-controlled mechanisms so they can stretch across to one another with their sweeping necks and engage in a mating song. Their meticulously managed movements are typical of Zwanikken’s work.
His interest lies not primarily in a stunning technical achievement. Instead he looks to link his art, which is inanimate, with the living world. His constructions show human or animal behaviour and thus serve as tools for studying, unravelling and commenting on nature. The constructions do not simply operate, they ‘behave’. And it is the machines’ very behaviour that shows their maker to be both curious about and familiar with animal and plant life.
Since the first robot was constructed, people have experienced feelings for moving machines: feelings of fear and also of love. Zwanikken uses these universal feelings of compassion for and attachment to all (real or imitated) living beings. He uses machinery as a mini-creator, breathing new life into skulls and feathers. As he himself says, ‘My creations reflect an infinite fascination and curiosity with the splendours of life.’
Since 1990, his work has been exhibited regularly in galleries and museums in the Netherlands and countries such as France, Germany, Japan, Mexico and the Czech Republic.
Lately his work was shown among at the Kunsthaus Graz, Austria, and Museum Tinguely, Basel, Switzerland.
Zwanikken's work is being represented in the Netherlands by Galerie Ramakers
Contacting Christiaan chris.zwanikken@hotmail.com
