Cao Fei

Born in 1978 in Guangzhou, currently living in Beijing. Cao Fei is one of the most innovative young 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 the Chinese society today.

Cao Fei's works have been exhibited at a number of international and triennales, including , , Taipei Biennale, the 15th & 17th , Biennial, Yokohama Triennale, and the 50th, 52nd & 56th . Exhibitions and screenings of her work have taken place at Tate Modern in London and Serpentine Gallery, Whitechapel Gallery and New Museum, Guggenheim Museum, and MoMA in New York; Centre Pompidou in Paris, Palais de Tokyo and Foundation Louis Vuitton. In 2016, Cao Fei held her first solo exhibition in MoMA PS1, New York.

Cao Fei's recent projects include a solo show at Tai Kwun Contemporary in Hong Kong (2018) and a retrospective at K21 Düsseldorf (2018), a solo exhibition at Centre Pompidou, Paris (2019), an Augmented Reality Art Project by APPLE and New Museum New York (2019)，a solo exhibition at Serpentine Gallery, London(2020). Her future projects will be a solo exhibition at MAXXI, the National Museum of 21st Century Arts in Rome and a solo exhibition at UCCA Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing.

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 and Best Artist Award in 2016. She was also the recipient of Piedra de Sal Award at Cuenca Biennale in 2016.

Selected Solo Exhibitions

2020 Blueprints, Serpentine Gallery, London, UK Cao Fei: Fú Chá, National Gallery Singapore, Singapore 2019 HX, Centre Pompidou, Paris 2018 Cao Fei, K21 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Dusseldorf, Germany A hollow in a world too full, Tai Kwun Contemporary,Hong Kong 2016 Cao Fei, MoMA PS1, New York, USA Cao Fei, The Center for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv, Israel Cao Fei: La Town - 30 years of CFCCA, Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art, Manchester, UK 2015 Cao Fei: Shadow Plays, The Mistake Room, Los Angeles, US Cao Fei: Splendid River, Secession, Vienna, Austria Cao Fei: La Town, Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht, Netherlands Cao Fei: Same Old, Brand New, Art Basel Hong Kong, International Commerce Centre, Hong Kong 2014 La Town, Cao Fei's Solo Exhibition, Lombard Freid Gallery, New York, US Cao Fei's Theatrical Mirror, OzAsia Festival, Contemporary Art Center of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia 2013 Haze and Fog, Eastside Projects, Birmingham, UK Haze and Fog, Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art, Manchester , UK Haze and Fog, Tate Modern, Starr Auditorium, London, UK 2012 Cao Fei: Simulus, Surrey Art Gallery, Vancouver, Canada 2011 Play Time, Lombard-Freid, New York, US RMB City Opera, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, US 2010 RMB City, A Space Gallery + Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival, Toronto, Canada Cao Fei: RMB City, CrossFade Lounge, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, US 2009 NO LAB on Tour, Savannah College of Art and Design Lacoste Campus; Galerie Pfriem du SCAD, Lacoste, France Cao Fei: Live in RMB City, Shiseido Gallery Solo Exhibition, Tokyo, Japan RMB City Opera (world premiere performance) Artissima Art Fair 2009, Torino, Italy Out of Space 1: Cao Fei - Whose Utopia, Julia Stoschek Collection, Gloriahalle, Duesseldorf, Germany 2008 RMB City, Lombard-Freid Projects, New York, US Cao Fei, Frac Ile-de-France / Le Plateau, Paris, France Cao Fei : RMB City, Serpentine Gallery (2008-09), London, UK Cao Fei, Kunsthalle Nürnberg, Nürnberg, Germany 2007 Cao Fei: Whose Utopia? , Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, CA, US 2006 PRD Anti-Heroes, Museum Het Domein, Sittard, Netherlands

Selected Group Exhibitions

2019 The Street. Where the World is Made, La Panacée, MoCo, Montpellier Remapping Reality.Selected Video Collection from Wang Bing, OCAT, Shanghai Vertiginous Data, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul Is This Tomorrow?, Whitechapel Gallery, London

2018 9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Queensland Art Gallery, Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA), South Brisbane Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), San Francisco ANTI, 6th Athens Biennale, Athens 57th October Salon: The Marvellous Cacophony, Belgrade Biennial, Cultural Centre of Belgrade, Belgrade I Was Raised on the Internet, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Chicago Extreme. Nomads - RAY 2018, MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt One Hand Clapping, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York BMW Art Car #18, Art Basel, Hong Kong Art in the Age of the Internet 1989 to Today, ICA Boston, Boston globalocal, Kunsthalle zu Kiel, Kiel

2017 Utopia & Dystopia (Part II), MAAT Museum of Art and Technology, Lisbon .com/ .cn, K11 Art Foundation and MoMA PS1, Hong Kong Mekong - New Mythologies, Hong Kong Arts Centre Pao Galleries, Hong Kong Space Force Construction, V-A-C Foundation, Palazzo delle Zattere, Venice 10 Years Julia Stoschek Collection: Generation Loss, Julia Stoschek Collection, Düsseldorf Dioramas, Palais de Tokyo, Paris M+ Canton Express, M+ Pavilion, Hong Kong Talking Pictures: Camera-Phone Conversations Between Artists, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Hyper Real-Sculpture 1973–2017, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

2016 Chinese Whispers - Recent Art From The Sigg & M+ Sigg Collections, Museum of Fine Arts Bern, Bern Bentu - Chinese artists in a time of turbulence and transformation, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris M+ Sigg Collection Exhibition, ArtisTree, Hong Kong On the Shoulders of Giants, Kunsthalle Mainz, Mainz The Time is Out of Joint, Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah LIT, 9, Berlin Cao Fei: It’s a Game!, Chinese Visual Festival x BFI Experimenta, BFI Southbank & Kings College London, London

2015 Experimenta: Dream Worlds and Nightmare Visions - BFI London Film Festival, BFI Southbank, London All the World’s Future - 56th Venice Biennale, Arsenal Pavilion, Venice Documentary Fortnight 2015, MoMA’s International Festival of Nonfiction Film and Media, MoMA, New York Fairy Tales - 2015 MOCA International Art Festival, Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei (MOCA), Taipei Wild Grass: New Chinese Images, Doxa Documentary Film Festival, Vancouver Spaced Out: Migration to the Interior, Red Bull Studios, New York

2014 Cao Fei: House of Treasure, CASS Sculpture Foundation, Sussex Whose Utopia, Poetry and Dream, Tate Modern, London Is Utopia for Sale? Maxxi Museum, Rome 15 Years CCAA（China Contemporary Art Award) exhibition, Shanghai Power Station of Art, Shanghai Haze and Fog Screening, Prospectif Cinéma, Centre Pompidou, Paris

2013 Cao Fei: House of Treasure, Inflation! West Kowloon Cultural District, Hong Kong Chinese Realities / Documentary Visions, The Museum of Modern Art, New York Cao Fei: In the Night Garden, Times Museum, Guangzhou 9th Bienal do Mercosul, Porto Alegre

2012 Cao Fei - The Orchid Pavilion, Wide Open School, London Hayward Gallery, London Asian Women Artists, Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Fukuoka RMB City Opera, TRACK @S.M.A.K, Ghent Cao Fei's Shadow Life, 41st International Film Festival Rotterdam, Rotterdam

2011 Future Generation Art Prize, ILLUMInations - 54th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia 2011, Venice Daydream Believer!!, Yebisu International Festival for Art&Alternative Visions, Tokyo Real Virtuality, Museum of the Moving Image, Astoria, New York

2010 RMB City, 29th Bienal se Sao Paulo 2010, San Paulo The Beauty of Distance: Songs of Survival in a Precarious Age, 17th Sidney Biennale, Sidney, AU Contemplating the Void, Guggenheim Museum, New York

2009 Dress Codes: The Third ICP Triennial of Photography and Video, International Center of Photography, New York Timelapse, National Art Museum of China (NAMOC), Beijing The Generational: Younger Than Jesus, The New Museum, New York

2008 Sprout from White Nights, Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm Yokohama Triennale, Yokohama ART IS FOR THE SPIRIT: Works from The UBS Art Collection, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo Cine Cine Cine!!! Chinese Contemporary Art Beyond the Global Market, Strozzina, Palazzo Strozzi, Florence Farewell to Post-Colonialism - The Third Guangzhou Triennial, Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou 2007 RMB City, The Hong Kong & Shenzhen Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism / Architecture, Shenzhen & Hong Kong SAR 10th International , Istanbul Everyday Miracles, 52nd Venice Biennale, Chinese Pavilion, Venice Lyon Biennial, Lyon

2006 China Power Station: Part 1, Battersea Power Station, Serpentine Gallery, London , Singapore Busan Biennale, Busan Taipei Biennial, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei The Thirteen: Chinese Video Now, PS1 Contemporary Art Center, New York 15th Sydney Biennale, Sydney

2005 Trouble with Fantasy, Kunsthalle Nürnberg, Nürnberg Out of Sight, De Appel Foundation, Amsterdam Parallel Realities: Asian Art Now, The 3rd Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale, Fukuoka Emergency Biennale in Chechnya: A suitcase from Paris to Grosny, Palais de Tokyo, Paris Dialectics of Hope, 1 Moscow Biennial, Moscow 2nd Guangzhou Triennial, Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou

2004 5th Shanghai Biennial, Shanghai Museum of Art, Shanghai Between Past and Future: New Photography and Video From China, ICP and Asia Society, New York China Now, Gramercy Theatre, Museum of Modern Art, New York

2003 10th Biennial of the Moving Image, Geneva Alors la Chine?, Centre Pompidou, Paris Z.O.U. (Zone of Urgency), 50th Venice Biennale, Venice

2002 Reinterpretation: A Decade of Experimental Chinese Art – The 1st Guangzhou Triennale, Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou Pause: The 4th 2002, Gwangju China on Screen, Tate Modern, London 2001 The New Media Art Festival: Non-linear Narrative, National Academy of Art, Hangzhou The 2nd Berlin Biennial for Contemporary Art, Berlin Virtual Future, Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou 2000 Fuck Off: Uncooperative Approach, Eastlink Gallery, Shanghai PhotoEspana 2000, Madrid 1999 4th Cross-Strait, Hong Kong and Macau Student Film & Video Festival, Hong Kong, Japan