ShanghART Beijing is pleased to present Birdhead's solo exhibition Welcome to Birdhead World Again, Beijing 2018 from 9 September to 16 October. This is the second solo show of Birdhead at ShanghART Beijing. Featuring multiple series of photographs and installations of all kinds, this exhibition reveals how the two members of Birdhead redefine the relationship between physical, invisible materials and images, and how they give shape to emotions and romanticism.

The photographic matrix, which has been frequently seen in Birdhead's art practice since 2011, is also included in this show. For instance, hundreds of photographs of man-made structures from all over the world are neatly laid out in Birdhead World 2018-1. Compared to the photo matrixes that create the rhythm between images, the work Saecula Saeculorum generates meanings through materials and pictures. In order to preserve the moments that become eternal via photography, the artists carefully use epoxy resins to seal up the waste photos.

Breeze is an installation work composed of several pinwheels with photographs. Spinning in the wind and the warm light, the images on the transparent blades and the pinwheels themselves constantly cast shadows on the wall like a slideshow, which gets blurred in high winds, or, conversely, become clear when the wind blows slowly. The artists contrast the past moments documented through images with the present uncertainty in a lyrical way, and body the freedom and power of wind through the playful pinwheels.

In the still-life theatre Dreamed on display in the same space with Breeze, the ferocious-looking food of all colours, the dolls in wild clothes as well as the vivid scene-setting in the photographs all come from the real image of the two artists, or can be viewed as a metaphor for them. The dramatic lighting effects in the still-life photographs echo the LEDs within the frames which make the photos look like floating in the light. The glossy silks around the photographs also add to the soft atmosphere.

From the photo matrixes combining different images to the absurd still-life scenes, Birdhead reflects the instinctive reaction on the raw materials, in response to the absurdity of the real-world rules and looking on the vicissitude of human civilization. To trace human being's plainness and romantic spirit is the primary drive for their creation.

Press release courtesy ShanghART.