ICP curator Christopher Phillips introduces Zhou Tao's Blue and Red.
Thursday, May 7, 7-8pm
Columbia University, Schermerhorn 612
116th St & Broadway, New York, NY 10027
Free and open to the public
Join us for a screening of Zhou Tao's Blue and Red, introduced by Christopher Phillips, Curator at the International Center of Photography.
Blue and Red investigates the space of public squares. Shot in Guangzhou and Bangkok in 2014, the film captures people in the squares bathed in colors refracted from streetlights and LED screens, highlighting the contours of their actions and behaviors in new ways. This subtle theatricality that suspends reality is interrupted by the images of barricades, tear gas, riots, and thousands of protesters' tents, that occupy the square but are also confined to it, raising questions about the connection between here and elsewhere.
This program is part of My Camera Doesn’t Lie? Documentary Aesthetics in East Asia, a panel and screening series initiated by the Department of Art History of Columbia University, co-organized by Asia Art Archive in America.
Zhou Tao (b. 1976, Changsha, China) lives and works in Guangzhou, China. His subtle and humorous videos record interactions between people, things, and situations – touching on questions about the multiple trajectories of reality. Selected solo projects include Green Sun (Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, 2014), Zhou Tao: The Training (Kadist Art Foundation, 2013), Seek for Geothermal Heat (Times Museum, 2012), and 1234- (MIT List Visual Arts Center, 2009). His work has been shown widely at exhibitions and festivals such as The 61st International Short Film Festival Oberhausen (2015), New Directors/New Films (2015), The 7th and 10th Shanghai Biennale (2008, 2014), The 5th Auckland Triennial (2013), The 3rd ICP Triennial of Photography and Video (2009), among others.
Christopher Phillips is the curator at the International Center of Photography in New York City. He has organized many exhibitions exploring Asian photography and video. These include the first major U.S. exhibition of Chinese contemporary photography, Between Past and Future: New Photography and Video from China (2004, co-curated with Wu Hung) as well as China and the Chinese in Early Photographs (2004), Atta Kim: On-Air (2006), Shanghai Kaleidoscope (2008), Heavy Light: Recent Photography and Video from Japan (2008), and Wang Qingsong: When Worlds Collide (2011). Mr. Phillips teaches courses in the history and criticism of photography at Barnard College, New York University, and the ICP/Bard MFA program.
