The Curious Animals of Amsterdam's Art Zoo

New York Times

08-07-2025

Eva Krook stood inside a canal mansion in Amsterdam last year, nervously awaiting news about a lost Tyrannosaurus rex.
Krook had received a phone call from Italy informing her that there had been a mix-up with four crates in which the giant fossil replica had been packed for shipping to her new museum. The massive tail, rib cage, pelvic bone and limbs had all arrived, but when she opened up the fourth crate it was empty, save for a few scattered wood shavings. The T. rex's skull was missing.
This was one of the hiccups in setting up the Art Zoo, an ambitious new museum that opened to the public in the center of Amsterdam last month. Situated in a 17th-century mansion in the city's canal district, the museum brings together natural history and contemporary taxidermy created by two Dutch artists who call themselves Darwin, Sinke & van Tongeren.
Krook, the museum's director, said the T. rex wasn't her only logistical problem. She also had to figure out how to get a giant gorilla, made of 78 yards of denim, through the building's long and narrow front doors.
'This is a landmark building, so it's not like we can just break a door to fit it in,' she said. 'I joked that I felt like I was visiting the gynecologist, because we're always trying to figure out how to get the baby out — or in this case, in.'
The T. rex and the denim gorilla are just two of more than 200 extraordinary objects now on show at the Art Zoo. The museum was created by Ferry van Tongeren and Jaap Sinke, a Haarlem, Netherlands-based artistic duo behind Darwin, Sinke & van Tongeren.
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