Modern Birds

An open air exhibition in the Museumkwartier

The eagle stands for strength, the owl for wisdom and swallows are said to bring good fortune. Time and again, humans have endowed birds with their own qualities and elevated them to symbols. They are among the oldest species and have accompanied us since the dawn of time, when we dwelled in caves.

Even in modern cities they are ever present: from the soft cooing of doves to the cawing of crows and the cheerful chirping of sparrows or the ear-splitting shrieks of ring-necked parakeets. And on The Hague’s coat of arms it is the stork that takes centre stage.

Birds are at once fixtures and elusive entities. Even when confined to a cage or captured by a wildlife photographer or birdwatcher, their inner world remains beyond our ken. They are a mystery. At any moment they may unfurl their wings and vanish, beating the air – a freedom we as gravity-bound creatures, can only dream of.

It is for all these reasons that birds have inspired artists for centuries. At the Mauritshuis, guest curator Simon Schama has traced a historical arc of ‘bird art’ starting from Carel Fabritius’ The Goldfinch (1654). 

This exhibition, Modern Birds, showcases the enduring fascination for these creatures contemporary artists express. For birds continue to stir the imagination: their plumage displays, their calls that usher in spring, their urge to build and brood, and their power to take flight and, from high above, cast an impassive gaze on life below.

Herman Lamers: Two penguins  

Animals are truly different from humans, yet we are able to engage with them as ‘the other’. We can relate to them, imagine their experiences and recognise ourselves in them. Animals, too, know discomfort, awkwardness and bewilderment. Herman Lamers makes this abundantly clear in his sculptures which often centre on animals: a llama wearing socks, a dog gazing doubtfully into a mirror, a zebra that has somehow ended up in a bird’s nest high in a tree. 

The penguins Lamers created for the Bleiswijkstraat in Rotterdam likewise start a dialogue with residents and passers-by. Standing side by side on a raised platform, they have climbed onto a soapbox to deliver a speech – earnest, yet slightly ill at ease due to all the attention. It is as though the neighbour with a beer belly and an opinion on everything has reincarnated as an Arctic bird. 

Hans van Asch: Another World, City Life, Space Invaders, Stillevens met gevogelte 

Hans van Asch built a photographic studio intended for birds, not people, in his back garden, out in the open. It consists of a table on which the artist places ever-changing models of his own making. He positions his softbox and flash, sits behind the camera and waits. However, it usually doesn’t take long for one of his intended models to alight on the perch he has invitingly set at the heart of the miniature scene. 

Van Asch’s work explores the interaction between photographer and bird, between the human gaze and the animal being observed, between director and actor. The setting plays a crucial role. A chaffinch or tit may appear in an industrial no man’s land, a rough backstreet or a haunted square that would not look out of place in a de Chirico painting. It is left to the viewer to decide whether the casting was successful. 

Haevan Lee: Orange Zone 

“And only the birds fly from East to West Berlin,” sang Dutch pop group Klein Orkest in 1984, referring to The Wall, the defining symbol of the Cold War. The song might just as well have been about the DMZ: the 248 kilometre long, 3.5-kilometre-wide buffer zone on the Korean peninsula that separates the capitalist south from the totalitarian dictatorship in the north. Artist Haevan Lee grew up close to the DMZ. The militarised border frequently appears in her work, often combined with birds.  

In Orange Zone, it concerns the migratory birds that fly every winter from the north across the DMZ to the warmer south. They pass the orange warning signs hidden in the undergrowth on the ground, which alert aircraft not to cross this border lightly. But, just as in Berlin, the birds pay no heed to these human restrictions. After all, it is not their war, but it is their habitat. 

Luke Stephenson: Incomplete Dictionary of Show Birds 

When the legendary British big-game hunter Jim Corbett (1875-1955) swapped his rifle for a camera and converted to nature conservation, he remarked: “I still shoot animals – I just don’t kill them anymore.” Something similar may be said of the equally British Luke Stephenson. He, too, collects birds, though only in photographic form. His lens focuses on the possessions of those who keep songbirds for competitive display. Stephenson has immersed himself in this subculture for 15 years now, working through his list of ‘birds yet to be shot’ with near-obsessive dedication. 

Stephenson photographs birds in a highly stylised manner: in profile, on a simple perch. The monochrome background is sometimes chosen for contrast, at other times for a refined tone-on-tone harmony. Stephenson brings the singular beauty of each bird into sharp relief using the simplest of means. Together, they constitute a chorus of individual sounds and colours. 

Studio Ossidiana: Pigeon Tower, The Birds’ Palace, City of Birds, Platform for Humans and Birds, Furniture for a Human and a Parrot 

The Hague is home to over 569,000 inhabitants if you only count the people. Add the animals or birds alone and the total runs into the millions. Studio Ossidiana pays attention to these often-overlooked users of public space. They are fortunate enough to be able to fly, for all too frequently they are driven away from places to which they have as much claim as we do. Humans are relentless competitors. 

This is why Studio Ossidiana creates sanctuaries for birds, ranging from stylised dovecotes to parrot perches. These resting places are often combined with feeding stations, forming something akin to petrol stations for birds. The seeds excreted there take root in the soil beneath the structures and burst into bloom – the natural cycle at its most complete. In these small earthly paradises, humans must confine themselves to the role of onlooker. Architecture, design and art are, for once, not there to serve them, but to cater to our feathered fellow urbanites. 

Rosemin Hendriks: Swans 

Rosemin Hendriks finds her subjects close to home. She is best known for her self-portraits that are not, in fact, self-portraits at all. Her features are easily recognisable in these drawn faces with their striking eyes, yet they are less a depiction of a specific individual than an expression of emotions or facets of a personality. Hendriks uses her own face as a canvas for human expressions that transcend the personal. 

The same holds true for the swans she encounters on her daily walks through the park near her home. Hendriks draws them in the same style as her face: clearly delineated, in black, white and shades of grey. Details dissolve into abstraction, and at times the swans’ bodies merge with their reflections. This reduces them – or perhaps, more accurately, elevates them – to symbols. Known for their monogamous ways, here swans embody love and eternal fidelity. 

Modern Birds is an outdoor exhibition of city program BinnenhofBuiten. BinnenhofBuiten organizes events and activities during the renovation of the Binnenhof. It is a project by The Hague & Partners for the Municipality of The Hague. BinnenhofBuiten is curated by Mary Hessing.