Cao Guimarães – Artist Talk

Like Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Cao Guimarães has a special eye for the minor events, objects, colours and sounds that usually escape our notice; it is his strength to discover a kind of random poetry in the everyday. Minuscule insects, bubbles, raindrops, leaves of flower scattered on the ground, footprints and bits of fluff inhabit his films.

freedom in the margins

The filmmaker has a marked preference for places inhabited by people who are often ignored: people who evade the predictable, structured life as it should be lived in a modern capitalist-based society. People living in the margins of society: the homeless, the loners, but also children, all of whom represent to him the freedom to live life your own way, uninhibited by rules of conduct. Guimarães presents us with alternative ways of living, creating a space for us to get away from our highly organized life.

Key elements in his work include the landscape and other natural phenomena like sunlight, the weather, the reflection of light on the water; in Guimarães” world the relationship between man and his natural environment is not hierarchical, but one of natural interconnectedness.

The work of the self-made filmmaker Guimarães operates at the interface of cinema and the visual arts. Although documentary in nature, his images appear to float between a known reality and a world in which the senses run free, unrestricted by rational thought.

about the artist

Cao Guimarães” films and installations were featured at the film festivals of Locarno, Cannes, Rotterdam, Sundance and Venice. His work has also been exhibited and acquired by such prestigious museums as the Tate Modern in London, the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Inhotim Institute in Belo Horizonte and the Fondation Cartier in Paris.