The Believers
This sprawling exhibition casts a wide net for artists, visionaries, spiritualists, scientists, and conspiracy theorists whose work is an extension of an over-arching view of the world. For these artists their work does not represent, but rather embodies spiritual, analytic, sentimental, or metaphysical elements. The underlying thread is deeply situated beliefs that flies in the face of skepticism, irony, and often, reason itself. They explore ineffable phenomena, the possibilities of the future, and forces working beyond the material world. Works range from the immense walking beach skeletons from kinetic sculptor Theo Jansen to visionary post-human future envisioned by Finnish genius Erkki Kurenniemi.

About Theo Jansen
Theo Jansen (1948) studied physics at the University of Delft, the Netherlands from 1968-1975. He left the university to become an artist, and painted for the first seven years. In 1980 he built a flying saucer (15 ft flashing lights, beep sounds) that flew over Delft and caused quite a commotion in town. Then he built a light sensitive spray-gun which paints an object on a surface. Since 1986 Theo Jansen has written a regular column for the Dutch daily newspaper De Volkskrant, and since 1990 he has been working on a new creation: skeletons made of electric-conduits which walk on wind power. These animals have evolved into several generations over the last twelve years. Jansen eventually plans to put the animals out in herds on the beaches, where they can live their own lives.


Animaris Percipiere nr.1, May 2005. Photo by Loek van der Klis