Blue en Red by Zhou Tao

47st International Film Festival Rotterdam

24 January- 4 February 2018

Rotterdam, 22 December 2017

As well as featuring in the Ammodo Tiger Short Competition with his latest work The Worldly Cave (2017), Chinese artist Zhou Tao will be celebrated within the context of Deep Focus Short with a profile programme comprised of his cinematic videos, several of which will be presented outside of the gallery context for their first time.

The works presented are made within a timeframe of ten years and together they reveal Zhou’s obsession with the quiet powers of time and space. Dwarfed by the sheer scale of the spaces they inhabit, the human beings in his videos are decentred in the frame and the flow of time that the camera captures. In his work, the indifference of space to the human experience of time is often represented by the natural and man-made environments that take on the role of silent observers, bathed in the neon hues of artificial light leaking out of the city.

Zhou Tao lives and works in Guangzhou but has been on residencies in New York, Paris and Bangkok where he shot several of the shown videos. His patient shots stretch beyond our everyday experience of time, turning a simple call to take our time and observe into a radical gesture. With recent presentations of his works held at the Venice Biennale and the Guggenheim, it’s about time we tune our senses to the experience of time as it is illustrated by Zhou Tao.

Short Profile Zhou Tao

1234, Zhou Tao, 2008, China

After Reality, Zhou Tao, 2013, China

Blue and Red, Zhou Tao, 2014, China

Chicken Speak to Duck, Pig Speak to Dog, Zhou Tao, 2004, China

Time in New York, Zhou Tao, 2009, China

The Worldly Cave, Zhou Tao, 2017, China, European premiere (festival)