Les Deux Garçons

Michel Vanderheijden van Tinteren (1965) and Roel Moonen (1966) met at the Academy of Visual Arts in Maastricht, where they graduated in plastic design. The duo, based in Landgraaf in southern Dutch Limburg, have worked together since 2000 as Atelier Les Deux Garçons.

The work of Les Deux Garçons encompasses a wide range. Always striving for perfection in their choice of material and finishes, they create collages, paintings, bronze statues, and freestyle assemblages. Most striking are their controversial taxidermy pieces, absurdist and sometimes emotive sculptural works made using dead animals and other found materials picked up at auctions or from antique dealers. With a feel for the weirdly theatrical, the duo challenge the viewer by presenting animals such as deer, lambs and piglets as Siamese twins or multiples, teamed with attributes such as toy guns, banknotes or bottles of perfume meant to symbolise fear, fate and transience.

Humour – often morbid – certainly plays a role in their work, but above all their pieces are intentionally thought-provoking. The works reflect on the consequences of life choices made in the past that can cast a shadow over the future. This explains the choice of a title like L’adieu impossible (‘The impossible farewell’), the name they gave to their first exhibition at Jaski Art Gallery in 2008.

Les Deux Garçons are becoming increasingly well-known in The Netherlands and abroad. Their works have been showcased at Milan’s famous Salon del Mobile design fair, at The Hague’s Kunstmuseum (formerly Gemeentemuseum), Schiedam’s Stedelijk Museum and the Ludwig Forum Aachen. They were also included in the ‘Contour and Continuity’ exhibition staged by three Delft museums as well as the ‘Bloedmooi’ exhibition at Rotterdam’s Schielandshuis alongside names like Jan Fabre, Jean Paul Gaultier and Maison Givenchy.

In 2017, Lex Deux Garçons were the subject of a television documentary by broadcaster AVRO’s arts programme Kunstuur.