Games with the Olympics

5 April 2012

This exhibition by Chinese photographer Zhou Jun presents a back-story to scenes that will dominate television screens for the next two weeks. What distinguishes these photographs from the zillions of the photogenic buildings of Shanghai and Beijing is that he followed their construction through and transformed the subject to reflect a wider story.

He adorns his buildings with bannerlike swathes of "virtual" red fabric or simply paints their bones the same flaming red, symbol of ceremony and revolution. He introduces the past into futuristic settings via digital technology, skilfully outlining metal scaffolding and concrete shapes with an electronic brush wielded with the delicacy of a skilled calligraphic artist. The ant-sized workers are incidental; his focus is always the skeletons of buildings growing towards the smog and taking China into the new world.

The focus is his documentary covering the rise of the Bird's Nest Stadium from a collection of twigs being woven by giant birds, to the finished nest, through the Scaffolding Series and No 3 Photograph of a panoramic of Beijing with the nest floating like a liner on the horizon.

The bridge of the two-legged China Central Television tower looming over Beijing is painted with ragged, dripping red, lending a sinister element to this Big Brother-like edifice. The exception is a portrait of the Forbidden Palace, swathed with suggestive red banner across its front elevation, reminding of its recent history and imperial past.

The draped "fabrics" raised comparisons with the "wrap" artist, Cristo but Zhou Jun's images uniquely intrude - even subvert the architects' vision by luring viewers into past stories.

Until early September. Information: 020 7734 6487, www.rossirossi.com.

Zhou Jun: Bird's Nest Project
Rossi & Rossi
Clifford Street, W1S 3RG

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