Zou Zou's Mime Reconstructed 1993 - 2024

“You piss in the wind and 15 years later, it comes back and hits you in the face" - Zou Zou speaking about Dower's sculpture in 1999.

In 1993 Sean Dower found a videotape on an Amsterdam market, which recorded a 1985 performance by the cabaret clown Zou Zou. The performance references socio-political issues of the era, such as the nuclear arms race and space travel. In one section Zou Zou mimes a set of actions and Dower translated this mime into an ergonomically accurate, three dimensional space, which included props used during the mime. A video monitor playing the mime is also incorporated into the sculpture in a location uncannily anticipated in the original mime. In trying to 'read' the mime and sculpture, the viewer is taken on a paradoxical, mirrored journey in the virtual or imagined space of their own mind.

Zou Zou’s Mime Reconstructed was first exhibited in Amsterdam in 1993 and Dower spent several years trying to track down Zou Zou, whilst continuing to exhibit the work internationally. Adverts were taken out in the performing arts press and in 1999 the film was projected publicly at large scale onto the fourth wall of the National Theatre on London's Southbank, accompanied by an appeal for information about Zou Zou. Zou Zou was eventually discovered through a German theatre festival and was traced to Amsterdam. He was originally from the US and had studied at clown school in Paris. Coincidentally it transpired that Zou Zou had been going out with an artist friend of Dower's in 1993 and had visited her in the shared studio building where the work was first exhibited. Zou Zou had missed the work at the time.

Zou Zou finally saw the reconstruction of his mime in 1999 at an exhibition at Lokaal 01 in Antwerp. He brought along his road manager and the guitarist from the original performance and loaned one of his props to the exhibition (a suitcase with pop-up Nuclear power station). Dower impersonated Zou Zou in a series of photographs in 1993, which were shown at the Musee des beaux Arts, Dunkirque in 2005. During the exhibition, Dower turned up unanounced dressed as Zou Zou and went sightseeing around the town of Dunkirque.

In 2023 Dower incorporated his self-portrait as Zou Zou into the design of posters and T-shirts for Pedro Reyes' Artists Against The Bomb project, which has been presented at a number of venues including the Judd Foundation and at the UN building in New York.

Chronology 1985-2024

1985 - ‘Zou Zou’s circus cabaret’ performed and recorded on video in Germany.
1993 - 1) Video tape of performance found by the the artist on a market in Amsterdam.
      2) The artist impersonates Zou Zou using make up and other props.
      3) Zou Zou’s Mime translated into 3D, ergonomic space.
      4) 'Zou Zou's Mime Reconstructed' first exhibited exhibited in Amsterdam.
1994 - Two more videotapes of performance found on same market.
1996 - ‘Zou Zou’s Mime Reconstructed’ exhibited at Lost Property, London.
1997 - ‘Zou Zou’s Mime Reconstructed’ exhibited at Portfolio Kunst Vienna.
1999 - 1) Zou Zou’s mime screened on the 4th wall of the National Theatre on London's Southbank.
      2) Adverts to trace Zou Zou placed on side of the National Theatre and in theatrical magazines.
      3) Reference to Zou Zou discovered on a Freiberg theatre festival’s website.
      4) The artist contacts the festival organisers who put him in touch with Zou Zou.
      5) ‘Zou Zou’s Mime Reconstructed’ shown in solo exhibition Other Spaces at Lokaal 01, Antwerp.
      6) Zou Zou attends the opening of the exhibition at Lokaal 01 and makes a blindfolded juggling performance.
2005 - Sean as Zou Zou exhibition and billboard for Les Merveilles du Monde Museum of Fine Arts, Dunkerque, France.
2023 - The artist designs posters and T shirts featuring Zou Zou for the Artists Against The Bomb project, exhibited at SITE Santa Fe, New Mexico, The Judd Foundation, New York and also displayed in the UN building in New York during the Second Meeting of State Parties to Treaty on Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.