Cao Fei: Cao Fei

The Beijing artist Cao Fei creates works that lie on the threshold between reality and fiction, reflecting the urban realities and societal moods of China. In her works, which vary between the aesthetics of documentary, film, and virtual reality, Cao Fei explores the nation’s ongoing transformations by drawing on her personal life and surroundings in Beijing. As an artist, she addresses questions that are universal to urban dwellers: Where is the development in big cities leading? What is the individual’s place within a rapidly changing urban society? Is it possible to be a critical observer of gentrification processes and at the same time be a part of the problem? The videos, photographs, drawings, and multimedia installations assembled in this stunning volume capture the entire oeuvre of this internationally acclaimed artist, and embark at the same time on a critical study of gentrification and urban living.

Contents

Forward  6

Philip Tinari: Cao Fei, or, The Art of Exuberant Ambiguity  14

Lauren Cornell: Reality Augmentation  32

Conversation Ⅰ: Cao Fei and Susanne Gaensheimer, Kathrin Beßen, and Agnieszka Skolimowska  50

Conversation Ⅱ: Cao Fei and Klaus Biesenbach  66

Works  86

Catalogue of Works 1995-2018  190

Selected Bibliography, Credits, Colophon  202

About Cao Fei

Born in 1978 in Guangzhou, Cao Fei is one of the most innovative Chinese artists to have emerged on the international scene. Currently living in Beijing, she mixes social commentary, popular aesthetics, references to Surrealism, and documentary conventions in her films and installations. Her works reflect on the rapid and chaotic changes that are occurring in Chinese society today.

Photo by Wen Peng

Image and Text: the shop, ©Authors, the shop, 2019

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