A retrospective of artist Wim Delvoye’s works will be on display from Friday until March 9 at the Rodolphe Janssen Gallery in the Brussels municipality of Elsene.
The ‘Wim Delvoye: Cloaca. Celebration 2000-2025’ exhibition will showcase the work of the world-renowned Belgian artist known for his tattooed pigs and explicit stained glass windows. It includes various sketches of successive versions of the ‘Cloaca,’ a machine that mimics the human digestive process.
Delvoye aims to highlight 25 years of the ‘Cloaca Original,’ a piece of installation art celebrated internationally as a pinnacle of Belgian surrealism. Created in 2000, the work, it was named after the anatomical opening in some animals that excretes waste and genital secretions. This creation resembles a lab setup with tubes and beakers, faithfully replicating the human digestive system.
Following the conception of the first ‘Cloaca Original’ around the millennium, Delvoye produced nine other versions of his ‘poo machine,’ as it’s popularly known. These include the Cloaca Professional, Cloaca No. 5, Cloaca New & Improved, Cloaca Turbo, and mini-Cloaca.
At the exhibition, visitors will be introduced to the Cloaca Travel Kit, a version integrated into a suitcase.
The exhibition also features various sketches and drawings made prior to the construction of the different Cloacas. Each of these versions has a logo inspired by a well-known brand, including Coca-Cola, Disney, Harley-Davidson, Chanel No. 5 for Cloaca No. 5, and Mr. Proper.
Visitors will be able to admire over forty original drawings by Delvoye, Cloaca-produced waste, Anal Kiss-prints, and Cloaca merchandising objects.
