Amsterdam's Art Zoo: A Macabre Menagerie Where Humans Are Caged

Amsterdam's new Art Zoo museum confronts visitors with a dramatic display of taxidermy, where preserved creatures such as a 12-foot crocodile are presented in a manner intended to evoke storytelling and drama. The museum, created by Dutch artists Jaap Sinke and Ferry van Tongeren, draws inspiration from 16th and 17th-century "wunderkammers," or curiosity cabinets.

Unlike traditional natural history museums, where animals are posed to mimic nature, the Art Zoo aims to imbue the taxidermied animals with an "attitude." "The main thing is that we like storytelling with the animals," van Tongeren told The Associated Press. "We like to add drama. We add an attitude to the animals, where traditional taxidermists just want to mimic nature."

Visitors entering the museum are met with a striking tableau, including the aforementioned crocodile suspended from the ceiling. Other exhibits feature a cheetah lounging in an alcove, a Japanese giant spider crab with a six-foot leg span posed above a doorway, and piles of bones, such as those from a Mosasaurus.

An unusual design element of the Art Zoo is the enclosure of visitors. The display rooms, located in a 17th-century canal house, are surrounded by black metal cages. "We really like the concept of having all the people in a cage and then all the animals free," van Tongeren explained. "In that way, the whole building becomes one artwork."

The artists emphasized that all animals in the collection died of natural causes, primarily sourced from zoos in Europe. Sinke noted that obtaining the necessary paperwork can be challenging. The collection also includes curiosities like "Jenny Hanivers"—modified ray carcasses presented as mythical sea monsters—and a series of Darwin busts displayed in a nod to Charles Darwin, whose evolutionary theories influenced the artists.

The duo gained wider recognition in 2015 when artist Damien Hirst purchased their entire exhibition from an art show in London. Sinke and van Tongeren view their work as a continuation of Darwin's "wonder," finding an ironic parallel in exhibiting these natural curiosities within a building that previously housed the Biblical Museum.