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Li Zhiguo

li-zhiguo02Tiny As They
China

In Li Zhiguo’s photos a number of birds and insects are no longer tiny; these puny creatures look bigger and stronger. He shows the tragedy of the human species. “Compared with Nature, humans are tiny. Humans are encoffining creations of Nature, one after another; when they are hammering the nails they find themselves being swallowed, inch by inch, by endless darkness. Compared with Science, humans are tiny. Bizarre species are showing hideous expressions. Alien-like sperms are demonstrating resistance before the fertilisation. Compare with Death, humans are tiny. Death returns oceans to oceans and skies to skies, leaving humans with nothing. Simply nothing.”

So Much Tiny by Wang Shige

Compared with aeroplanes, birds are tiny.
It is said mankind invented planes based on the inspiration borrowed from bird wings. Yet I see planes shuttling across the sky, flushing all birds away.
Compared with dining tables, birds are tiny.
It is said birds are friends of humans. Yet I see bird delicacies on the table, bare-handed tearing being the only etiquette since the cutlery are too slow.
Compared with the hometown, birds are tiny.
It is said migration is the instinct of birds. Yet I see icing apples and the moon in the cold night, and birds with ruffled feathers too fragile to fly back.

Li Zhiguo was born in 1959 to a photography family in Changchun, China. He currently lives and works in Changchun. Li began to teach himself photography while he was in middle school, and he has been taking photographs since the 1980s. His work might best be called surreal expressionism; there is surrealist undertone to all of his portraits, streetscapes, landscapes, still-lives, and conceptual work.

[ Part of the 2016 Guest Curator Showcase: ‘We Alter Nature‘ presented by Claudia Hinterseer ]