Idiots (Afke Golsteijn and Floris Bakker)
Amsterdam, NL, 1975 Works and lives in Amsterdam
Floris Bakker and Afke Golsteijn (1975, Amsterdam) are an artist duo collectively known as ‘Idiots’. The duo is known primarily for their work combining preserved animals and taxidermy with precious stones, glass, pearls, embroidery and forged metal. Our hunger for beauty and our rejection of mortality appear to be strongly connected. The Idiots manage to create from the body of a dead animal an exceptional unity, something that is both repulsive and beautiful. An ornament made of animal and stone, to be worn as jewellery or put in a box for safekeeping. The Idiots’ work, however, comprises significantly more than this.
Work by the artist duo Idiots has been exhibited all over the world and feature in various private and public collections including the National Museum Oslo in Norway, the Kiasma Museum in Helsinki (Finland), and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). The animals that Idiots work with are dead, but they have not been killed. They are roadkill animals, or stillborn animals, like the calf in No Title, No Status (2007).