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Theo Jansen Strandbeest
04 July 2025
Audemars Piguet Contemporary is delighted to present Strandbeest, an exhibition by artist Theo Jansen at Plateforme 10 in Lausanne, Switzerland. Coinciding with the brand’s 150th anniversary, this is a unique moment for Audemars Piguet Contemporary, the brand’s art programme, to continue its support of Jansen’s artistic practice and bring the work “home” to Switzerland eleven years after first working with the artist.
Possessing an uncanny lifelike locomotion, the strandbeests have been developed over almost 35 years of experimentation and development—and today regarded as Jansen’s most renowned project. The exhibition at Plateforme 10 comprises two large-scale strandbeest sculptures that use physics and engineering to manipulate simple materials such as plastic tubing, cable ties, and recycled water bottles into fluid, active structures that mimic biological-like movement based on surrounding environmental factors.
In 2014, Audemars Piguet Contemporary, in collaboration with the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM), presented the strandbeests on Miami Beach during Art Basel Miami Beach. In the years that followed, the strandbeests have evolved from rudimentary structures, barely able to stand, to become complex creatures that are able to respond to environmental conditions by storing wind power, changing direction when they sense water and anchoring themselves during oncoming storms.
Visit THE Exhibition
Theo Jansen’s fossilised strandbeests will be on view at PLATEFORME 10 from July 1 to August 3, 2025.
Address
Pl. de la Gare 16/17, 1003 Lausanne, Switzerland
Visiting Hours
Monday through Wednesday 10:00 – 18:00
Thursday 10:00 – 20:00
Friday through Sunday 10:00 – 18:00
After decades roaming the Dutch beaches, my "strandbeests", like living creatures turned to stone over millennia, have entered their fossilized form. The continued collaboration with Audemars Piguet Contemporary comes at a pivotal moment in the "strandbeests'" journey; they no longer seek the wind to propel them but instead invite contemplation of their mechanical souls. This exhibition represents both an end and a beginning—the creatures have completed their evolutionary cycle on earth, yet their story continues through the eyes of those who visit them in the magnificent space of Plateforme 10.
Theo Jansen
Artist
Originally built to be kinetic, more than 10 years later, Jansen has proposed to ‘fossilise’ these once mobile sculptures in Lausanne —freezing them in time, referencing relics from prehistoric eras and the Mesozoic age. Evoking presentations of fossilised creatures in a natural history museum, the exhibition at Plateforme 10 gives a stoic sense of the scale and power that the machines once had when walking autonomously on the beach. This exhibition will present one of the largest sculptures in the artist’s archive taking centre stage in the Musée Cantonal des Beaux-Arts (MCBA) Auditorium.
Alongside the sculptures, details of materials and sketches chronicle the complex construction process. Now frozen in their sculptural materiality, the artworks hold the potential of activation that belongs to their past. The poetic magic of the mechanical beings is alive, inviting the audiences to dream of their past freedom.
The strandbeests have inspired audiences around the world with their lifelike movements and careful construction for 35 years. We are thrilled to support Theo again after working together over a decade ago. As we celebrate a landmark anniversary for Audemars Piguet, we are delighted to bring the strandbeests to our home in Switzerland where audiences can experience Jansen’s incredible fossilised creations.
Denis Pernet
Art Curator, Audemars Piguet Contemporary