Few artistic projects have endured and evolved as much over time as Koen Vanmechelen‘s. The Belgian artist started the Cosmopolitan Chicken Project in 1999, one of the most established live art initiatives internationally that has finally landed in Spain. The Plaza del Gato Gallery will comprehensively host in its space the 31st generation of this artistic initiative, which this time ventures into Spain and into one of the oldest chicken breeds of the Mediterranean region, the Mechelse Cara Blanca (CCP31).
For more than twenty years, the Cosmopolitan Chicken Project crosses different breeds of chickens from various corners of the world, giving rise to new generations that combine the lineages of the previous ones. In this way, these birds become a kind of reflection of society, where identity, migration, hybridization and biodiversity play a fundamental role.
The 31st generation will cross the Spanish Mechelse Cara Blanca with the Mechelse Euskalduna, a cross that originated at the Basque museum Chillida Leku in 2025 and that blended with the native chicken of the Basque Country. According to Koen Vanmechelen himself, his search begins from a concrete idea: “My work is governed by the conviction that every organism needs another to survive, and that it is diversity that allows life to adapt.”
The exhibition at the Plaza del Gato Gallery, which will be open to visitors from 15 October to 16 January 2027, will encompass different artistic materials and a total of 17 works. From photographs, sculptures and drawings to multimedia installations, they will traverse the space on a journey through the latest crossings of the project.
One of the central pieces, Under Pressure, consists of a crystal urn that gathers the historical memory that the Cosmopolitan Chicken Project has built since 1999. As if it were a genetic map, it collects the feathers of each generation of the project.
While the exhibition takes place in Madrid, the project continues the breeding process at the Nave Va in Extremadura, which, moreover, in 2027 will inaugurate the Planetary Community Chicken project on the new generation in collaboration with universities, researchers, local farmers and residents.
The true driving force behind the project
In reality, the philosophical engine of this project leads to a reflection on society itself. The artwork already warns: “This is not a chicken”. And indeed the Belgian artist’s initiative focuses on the duality and the ethical need to recognize the value of the “other”. “The chicken and the egg, the cause and effect, good and evil, construction and destruction: everything exists in relation to the other,” he explains.
“I see the chicken as a metaphor for the human being, and the egg as much a metaphor for the world as a laboratory for the future,” Koen declares. A metaphorical project that invites us to reflect on exchange and diversity around evolution, and that, thanks to this conceptual artist, continues to grow.
