Cao Fei

Early Years

Cao Fei was born in 1978 in Guangzhou—the same year Deng Xiaoping became China’s leader and the nation began to open up to international trade. Her father, Cao Chong-en, created sculptures of “Father of the Nation” Sun Yat-sen as well as film star Bruce Lee. Cao Fei has said that she “definitely did not want to follow in my father’s footsteps” and rejected realism. [She later reappraised her father’s work in the film Me and my Father, which showed at the 2005 Moscow Biennale.] Cao graduated from the Affiliated Middle School of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts in 1997 and the Academy itself in 2001. Only two years later she was asked to exhibit her film San Yuan Li (2003), about a traditional village facing rapid modern growth, at the Venice Biennale.

Cao Fei: Artworks

Cao Fei’s practice blends popular culture, documentary and nods towards Surrealism to consider concepts of alienation following China’s seismic socio-economic shift towards capitalism. She is known for video work, but also explored emerging technology during the aughts to create online spaces. Her films explore the disconnect between the dreams of Chinese citizens (in her early works, this was mostly youth) and the anonymised existence dictated by modern urban sprawl.Installations often accompany her film works, ranging from production materials from the movies themselves to a full-scale recreation of a restaurant (Sydney, 2024).

• Cao Fei’s early works were experimental social commentaries. She made Imbalance 257 (1999) when she was still a student and it talks about the rejection of tradition. Chain Reaction (2000) explores the concept of evil via figures in medical scrubs, and Burners (2003) discusses men’s views of eroticism (featuring a vibrator in a plant pot).
• To make Whose Utopia (2006), Cao Fei spent six months with the workers at a lighting factory near Guangzhou, finding out more about their dreams beyond the daily grind of the production line and considering the significance of the factory as a symbol of China’s rapid adoption of capitalism (and the human cost). She expands on this theme with 2014’s La Town, where a more evolved capitalist city is depicted as corrupt and polluted, with plastic toy figures and crashed cars on the streets.
• MatryoshkaVerse (2022) was a documentary-style piece about the city of Manzhouli, Inner Mongolia, a combination of Chinese and Russian influences. Her film explores the ways cultures blend, and how human history impacts the planet. A series of prints accompanied the film in which Cao combined buildings, figures and cultural symbols—for example, Chinese men appearing to throw giant Russian dolls into the air.

Cao Fei: Awards

• Chinese Contemporary Art Award for Best Young Artist (2006)
• Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize, Frankfurt (2021)
• Established Artist, Art Basel Awards (2025)

Cao Fei: Exhibitions

Select Solo Exhibitions

• Dash, Prada Foundation, Milan (2026)
• Testimonies to the Near Future, Kunstmuseum Basel, Basel (2026)
• Cao Fei: Photographic Journey, Vitamin Creative Space, Guangzhou (2025)
• Cao Fei: Meta-mentary, Lenbachhaus, Munich (2024)
• Cao Fei: My City is Yours, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (2024)
• The future is not a dream, Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires (2024)
• Duotopia, Sprüth Magers, Berlin (2023)
• Ice Room Lagrange, ZiWU, Shanghai (2022)
• Asia One, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen (2022)* Cao Fei: Staging the Era, UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2021)
• Cao Fei: Supernova, The National Museum of XXI Century Arts, Rome (2021)
• Blueprints, Serpentine Galleries, London (2020)
• HX, Pompidou Centre, Paris (2019)
• A hollow in a world too full, Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong (2018)
• Cao Fei, MoMA PS1, New York (2016)
• Cao Fei: Shadow Plays, The Mistake Room, Los Angeles (2015)
• Cao Fei: Splendid River, Secession, Vienna (2015)
• Cao Fei’s Theatrical Mirror, OzAsia Festival, Contemporary Art Centre of South Australia, Adelaide (2014)
• Haze and Fog, Eastside Projects, Birmingham (and Manchester and London) (2013)
• RMB City Opera , The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City (2011)
• Cao Fei: Utopia, Dunedin Public Art Gallery, Dunedin, New Zealand (2010)
• RMB City Opera (world premiere performance) Artissima Art Fair 2009, Turin (2009)
• Cao Fei: RMB City, Serpentine Galleries, London (2008)
• Cosplayers, Lombard-Freid Fine Arts, New York City (and Beijing) (2004)### Select Group Exhibitions
• 10 Years LA!, Sprüth Magers, Los Angeles (2026)
• Paradigm Shift, 180 Studios, London (2025)
• Stay Connected: Navigating the Cloud, Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong (2025)
• Worlds Apart, Pérez Art Museum Miami, Miami (2025)
• The Practice of Everyday Life, CAPC Musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux, Bordeaux (2025)
• The Window, High Line at 14th Street, New York City (2025)
• Home and Beyond, Power Station of Art, Shanghai (2025)
• Sci-fi: Mythologies Transformed, Science Gallery, Melbourne (2024)
• Mundo Expandido, Museo de Arte de Lima, Lima (2024)
• Save Land United for Land, Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn (2024)
• Talking Bodies: Asian Women Artists, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul* Whose Utopia, Le Carré, France (2023)
• I’ll be Your Mirror: Art and the Digital Screen, Modern Art Museum Fort Worth (2023)
• Surreal Futures, Max Ernst Museum, Brühl (2023)
• Chanel Next Prize, Royal College of Art, London (2023)
• Hope from Chaos: Pandemic Reflections, ArtScience Museum, Singapore (2022)
• Roleplay, Fondazione Prada, Milan (2022)
• Vertigo, ARoS Aarhus Art Museum, Aarhus (2022)
• Can Everybody See my Screen? Singapore Art Museum (2022)
• Potential Worlds 2: Eco-Fictions, YARAT Contemporary Art Space, Baku (2021)
• The Hearts of the People Are Measured by the Size of the Land, Rising Melbourne, Melbourne (2021)
• Isle of Instability, West Bund Art and Design, Shanghai (2020)
• 100 Drawings from Now, The Drawing Centre, New York City (2020)
• Is This Tomorrow?, Whitechapel Gallery, London (2020)
• The Moon Represents My Heart: Music, Memory and Belonging, Museum of Chinese in America, New York City (2019)
• We’re Not Too Big to Care, Gus Fisher Gallery, The University of Auckland (2019)
• Art and China after 1989: Theatre of the World, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), San Francisco (2018)
• Virtual Insanity, Kunsthalle Mainz (2018)
• One Hand Clapping, Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, New York City (2018)
• Utopia and Dystopia (Part II), MAAT Museum of Art and Technology, Lisbon (2017)
• 10 Years Julia Stoschek Collection: Generation Loss, Julia Stoschek Collection, Düsseldorf (2017)
• Constellations: Highlights from the Nation’s Collection of Modern Art, Tate Liverpool, Liverpool (2016)
• Northern Spark Festival, Mill City Museum, Minneapolis (2016), USA
• Bentu, Chinese artists in a time of turbulence and transformation, Louis Vuitton Foundation, Paris (2016)
• Human+. The Future of Our Species, Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB), Barcelona (2015)
• M+ Sigg Collection: Chinese Art from 1970 to now, The Whitworth, Manchester (2015)
• Poetry and Dream, Tate Modern, London (2014)
• China China (Eyeliner), Pinchuk Art Centre, Kyiv (2013)

Further Reading

• Cao Fei’s website
• Cao Fei’s Instagram
• Interview with Ocula (2024)
• Artist profile at Sprüth Magers

Cao Fei FAQs

Ocula