Cao Fei

Cao Fei, Still from Whose Utopia, 2006, color video with sound, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

Cao Fei (born 1978, 曹斐) is a Chinese multimedia artist born in Guangzhou. Cao's work, which includes video, performance, and digital media, examines the daily life of Chinese citizens born after the Cultural Revolution. Her work explores China's widespread internet culture as well as the border between dream and reality. Cao has captured the rapid social and cultural transformation of contemporary China, highlighting the impact of foreign influences from America and Japan.

Career

Early Years

Cao received her B.F.A. from Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts in 2001. During her time there, Cao presented her first performance work, The Little Spark(1998), set in the affiliated Middle School of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts. She then created her first film, Imbalance 257 (1999), which displayed the current generation’s penchant for rejecting deep-rooted Chinese traditions. One year later, Cao produced another video work, Chain Reaction (2000). She described the film as " 'a view of schizophrenia' ", analyzing "the power of evil in human nature."

After graduating in 2001, Cao produced several notable works, including Burners (2003), a two-minute video focusing on the theme of human desire. The artist noted that Burners "demonstrates the presence of privacy in soft porn and parodies the notion of male narcissism."

Cao then focused on the modern paradox of China’s rapid economic growth and social marginalization, producing San Yuan Li 三元里 (2003), shot in a rural village settled amid the commanding, industrial skyline of Guangzhou. An honest look into traditional agrarian lifestyles, the work was commissioned for and exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 2013.

In the 2004 video work, COSPlayers, Chinese teenagers dress in costume and act out fantasies drawn from popular Japanese anime. The Internet’s power to create subcultures across China influenced the artist greatly.[ In 2006, Cao produced her Hip Hop series (2006), an exposé of the lively underground influence of American hip hop in China.

Whose Utopia (2006)

The 2006 film Whose Utopia is one of Cao Fei's most pivotal works. It focuses on the everyday experiences of assembly line workers at a light bulb factory in the Pearl River Delta region of China. The film opens with shifting views of an automated production line factory workers performing menial tasks. The artist interviews various workers, asking them their reasons for working at the plant. These conversations then introduce a series of performances. Each performance is a chance for the individual to showcase their dreams, fantasies and talents apart from their everyday life. Cao Fei explains, the film is “not about exposé and not about political correctness.” Rather, she aims to look at the lives of workers from multiple perspectives. For the worker, the performance is an opportunity to escape and reinvent oneself against the conformist backdrop of the factory. Cao likens the practice to creating an avatar. By using montage, music and imagery, she presents a thorough understanding of contemporary Chinese society. In recent years, Chinese migrant workers have flocked to factories to take part in the hastily growing economy. Whose Utopia suggests a perpetual disparity between the confinement of an industrial lifestyle and the individual utopia.[1] This work is currently owned by The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

Later Work

Cao Fei's work enters the virtual world in RMB City (2007), an online platform merging creative and social experimentation. Cao and her collaborators test the boundaries between virtual and physical existence. In the same year, she created a three-part video, i.Mirror (2007), in which she documents the life of her avatar, China Tracy, in the virtual world of Second Life.

RMB: A Second Life Planning By China Tracy (aka: Cao Fei) was acquired by The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 2008. From 2009 to 2015, Cao produced the works RMB City Opera (2009), East Wind (2011), Haze and Fog (2013), and Rumba II: Nomad (2015). Her 2014 post-apocalyptic film, La Town, features an elaborate, handmade, miniature city. The work shows Cao's perspective of a world disrupted by industrialization.

Exhibitions

Solo Exhibitions

International Biennials and Triennials

Group Exhibitions

Art Market

Cao Fei's works are frequently sold in Chinese and international art markets. Sold works include RMB: A Second Life City Planning No.1 (2007) sold for $16,128 at Sotheby’s Hong Kong in October 2015 and Silent Curse (+3 other works), sold for $24,192, also at Sotheby's Hong Kong in October 2009. Others include Murderess (+2 additional works from the Cosplayers series), sold for $17,741 in 2009 and Mirage, sold for $21,890 in 2007

Honors

Cao Fei was nominated for the Future Generation Art Prize and was a finalist for the Hugo Boss Prize, both in 2010. She received the Best Young Artist Award at the 2006 Chinese Contemporary Art Awards (CCAAs).

References

  1. ↑ "EPISODE: "Fantasy"" PBS. 2009. http://www.pbs.org/art21/watch-now/episode-fantasy.


External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 10/22/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.