Why sculptures on chickens?

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Revolted as many people on the reserved treatment for the animal (breeding and slaughter in battery today),  I worked during seven years on the theme of the chicken in sculpture and in painting.

I chose the chicken because it is the most commonplace animal and the one who constitutes the first source of proteins for the human food. In this search, that is not the beauty of the animal that interests me but its identity. The first report I made is that the chicken today is not anymore considered as a human being but as a factory with proteins for the human food.

The wager of these sculptures is to give the chicken, the bald chicken as we find it ready to eat, its inherent dignity to its state of animal. It is staged with dwarfs, because in this relation, the man is very minimized, lost in his contradictions. I represent mostly men in the form of dwarfs because I think that they have lost a lot on the charismatic plan.  As much the technological evolution that we see around us is extraordinary, we attend on the human plan in more and more phenomena of inhumanity as well. It is for it, to speak about the charismatic involution of the human being, that I make small men, thus dwarfs.

The shown sculptures are loaded with thousand things that are a reflection of the fantastically wealthy relation there is between the man and the animal. For example, books (stories of animals, scientific researches). For example ropes (taming of the animal and its use in the human works). For example keys put in cage and many other things.

We are the dominant species on this earth today, what should not only give us rights but also duties. If we abuse our rights today, the duties that we have to animals are not assumed, I want for proof only the multitude of animal species that disappear every day. We have a tendency to forget that we belong to the same living chain. The recent deciphering of the human genome and the animal genomes show the very strong nearness that we share with them. Some few percentages of difference should incite us to more respect and more caution. 

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                                                                                                                                                                                                                Michel Levy