Castle & Elephant

Song Tao at the Elephant Building

Song Tao
My Beautiful Zhang Jiang, 2006

The Elephant Building
Coventry Sports Centre
Fairfax Street
CV1 5RY

Private view  Thursday 2nd September > 6pm - 8pm
Open  Friday 3rd - Saturday 4th September > 11am - 6pm

Admission free


Castle & Elephant is pleased to present a short film by Shanghai based artist Song Tao.

My Beautiful Zhang Jiang is a poetic portrait of the artist’s own generation, who are living amongst the rush and calm of Shanghai’s developing landscape. The film opens in an office as a sleeping girl is picked up from her desk by a co-worker. Gradually she is transported through the city in the embrace of strangers. Asserting a rambling narrative, the film uses Zhang Jiang as a prop to perambulate the metropolis. These bodies, negotiating the city reflect Tao’s deep interest in both documenting and creating atmospheres that are rooted within his own life.

The film will be projected for three days within the unique architectural extension of Coventry Sports Centre. “The Elephant” building bears resemblance to the mammal that has featured as a symbol of fortitude on Coventry’s city crest since the seventeenth century. Castle & Elephant (the name of which also derives from this historical reference point) is a nomadic platform which presents experimental film and moving image in underused spaces across the city of Coventry.

Song Tao (1979) lives and works in Shanghai. Recent exhibitions include China Power Station II, Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo, Norway, Birdhead Photography Show 2006-2007, BizArt, Shanghai, China and Individual Position II, ShangART, Shanghai, China.