Vitamin Creative Space

Biography

Born in 1978 in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, Cao Fei graduated from Guangzhou Academy of Fine Art in 2001. She lives and works in Beijing.

Cao Fei is one of the most innovative Chinese artists to have emerged on the international scene. She mixes social commentary, popular aesthetics, references to Surrealism, and documentary conventions in her films and installations. Her works reflect on the rapid growth and development of Chinese society today, and explore perception and reality in places as diverse as a Chinese factory and the virtual world. Applying strategies of sampling, role play, and documentary filmmaking to capture individuals’ longings and the ways in which they imagine themselves—as hip-hop musicians, costumed characters, or digitized alter egos—Cao Fei reveals the discrepancy between reality and dream, and the discontent and disillusionment of China’s younger generation.

Fascinated by the virtual world of "Second Life", Cao Fei has created and designed her own virtual utopia, “RMB City” (2007–11), where she is both participant and observer through her “Second Life” avatar, China Tracy, who acts as a guide, philosopher, and tourist. Cao Fei’s art practices explore the fluidity of a world in which cultures have mixed and diverged in rapid evolution. ​​Her strong interest in popular culture, technological evolution, and urban transformation enables her to integrate the artistic process with specific social spaces and communities, turning her projects into platforms for dramatizing collective dreams. This is exemplified in HX, a nearly decade-long project (2015-2024) set in a vanished cinema Hongxia, where Cao Fei seeks to create dreams and memories of life and destiny amid the rapid transformations of reality.

Cao Fei’s recent solo exhibitions and projects include “Cao Fei:My City is Yours”, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; “Cao Fei: Tidal Flux”, Museum of Art Pudong, Shanghai, 2024; “CAO FEI. META-MENTARY”, Lenbachhaus, Munich, 2024; “Cao Fei: the future is not a dream”, Contemporary Pinacoteca, Grand Gallery, São Paulo,2023; “Ice Room Lagrange”, Zhiwu, Shanghai, 2022; “Safety Curtain”, Vienna State Opera, Vienna, 2022; “Asia One”, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenaghen, 2022; “Cao Fei:Supernova”, The National Museum of XXI Century Arts, Rome, 2021; “Cao Fei:Staging the Era”, UCCA Beijing, Beijing, 2021; “Blueprints”, Serpentine Gallery, London, 2020; “Cao Fei: Fú Chá”, National Gallery Singapore, Singapore, 2020; “HX”, Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2019; “Cao Fei”, K21 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Dusseldorf, 2018; “A hollow in a world too full”, Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong, 2018; “Cao Fei”, MoMA PS1, New York, 2016; ect. Her works have been exhibited at a number of international biennales and triennales, including Shanghai Biennale (2004), Moscow Biennale (2005), Taipei Biennale (2006), the 15th & 17th Biennale of Sydney (2006 and 2010), Istanbul Biennial (2007), Yokohama Triennale (2008), the 50th, 52nd & 56th Venice Biennale (2003, 2007 and 2015) and Aichi Triennale (2022). She was the first Chinese artist to receive the BMW Art Car Project. 

She was a nominee for the Future Generation Art Prize 2010 and the finalist of Hugo Boss Prize 2010. She received the Chinese Contemporary Art Award (CCAA) Best Young Artist Award in 2006, Best Artist Award in 2016, Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize in 2021 and the SCAD deFINE ART Award in 2024. She was also the recipient of Piedra de Sal Award at Cuenca Biennale in 2016.

Website: www.caofei.com