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Cao, Fei

Chinese, b. 1978

BiographyDeeply influenced by the rapid economic growth, industrialization, and growth of consumer culture in China, Cao Fei’s practice blurs the lines between fantasy, reality, digital, and analog worlds. The artist perceives a gap between her generation and those preceding it, partially due to the recent urbanization of China, but also because of the dissemination of outside cultures into the country via digital media. Cao Fei’s work examines the various realities in which she and her contemporaries exist, be it through costumed play as fantasy characters in her series of photographs COSplayers (2004) or through her video and performances within Second Life, a web based virtual fantasy world.

Cao Fei formed an alternate online self—an avatar named China Tracy—in Second Life and documents this existence for I. MIRROR- A Second Life Documentary Film by China Tracy (2007). Subsequently, Cao Fei designed a city for Second Life, and depicts it in the video titled RMB City (2007). Like her other Second Life projects, the fictitious city is a critique of a very real society in the midst of rampant consumerism and urban development. In the videos, China Tracy experiences the very human feelings of romance and loneliness among an entirely fabricated digital world. Interested in the duality of her real life versus her manufactured avatar, Cao Fei staged a performance in 2010, merging the two past Second Life projects. The performance and video documentation, titled RMB City Opera, depicts a man and woman playing out their lives as both avatars and real people, set to the backdrop of Fei’s fictional city.

Cao Fei completed a BFA from the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts (2001). Her work has been shown extensively in China and internationally. Selected solo shows include: MoMA PS1, New York (2016); Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong (2018); Centre Pompidou, Paris (2019); Serpentine Galleries, London (2020); MAXXI, the National Museum of 21st Century Arts, Rome (2021); Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen (2022); Pinacoteca Contemporânea, São Paulo (2023); SCAD Museum of Art (2024); Lenbachhaus Munich (2024), Museum of Art Pudong, Shanghai (2024); and a major retrospective at the UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2021). Cao Fei is the winner of many awards, including the SCAD deFINE ART (2024), Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize (2021), and “Best Young Artist” (2006) and “Best Artist” (2016) at the China Contemporary Art Award (CCAA).

caofei.com