Cites rise and fall, and in the last few decades, no more so rapidly than in China. The city carries with it the notion of the single unit of human expression, a place simultaneously of great opportunity and destruction. Of rebirth and revolution and reinvention. As the nature of our working lives is reimagined with increasing automation and artificial intelligence, and our streets are redefined to adjust for population and pollution, so our interactions with each other, and therefore the city itself, is in constant need of reinterpretation.
In recent years, avatars, social media, and computer-generated alternative realities have allowed people to experience cities and relationships as they might prefer, in contrast to what they may find on their doorsteps, or in their living rooms. As Jane Jacobs said in 1961 in The Death and Life of Great American Cities, “Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.”
Cao Fei has been examining, over her 30- year career China’s rapid urbanisation, globalisation and digital revolution, interpreting the energy of the contemporary metropolis in mesmerising films, photography and large-scale interactive and immersive installations.
On at the Art Gallery of New South Wales until April, and for her first major solo show in Australia, Cao Fei: My City is Yours 曹斐: 欢迎登陆, is a Sydney-exclusive staged as part of the Sydney International Art Series 2024–25, a retrospective with important key works and the premiere of two new commissions.
The exhibition explores Cao Fei’s twin themes; the city and technology, from the late 1990s to today, including early portraits of cosplayers and street dancers shot on DV-camcorder, to pioneering net art, photography, videogames, virtual reality and immersive installations.
Born in Guangzhou and based in Beijing, and famed and exhibited all over the whole world, Cao Fei has in 2023 been voted by ArtReview magazine one of the art world’s ten most influential people, when they called her, “a leading figure in envisioning our metaverse-tinged future,” and The New York Times has said, “No young artist has a sharper view of the future than Cao Fei.”
Her solo exhibitions have been held at venues including the UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2021); Serpentine Galleries, London (2020); Centre Pompidou, Paris (2019); MoMA PS1, New York (2016); and Tate Modern, London (2013). Cao’s work has been featured in group exhibitions and major biennial and triennial exhibitions worldwide since the early 2000s, including Aichi, Istanbul, Moscow, Shanghai, Sharjah, Sydney, Taipei, Venice and Yokohama.
The exhibition is co-curated by Art Gallery of New South Wales curator of film, Ruby Arrowsmith-Todd, and curator of Chinese art, Yin Cao, who have worked closely with the artist to develop the exhibition.
‘Cao Fei is a worldbuilder, a chronicler, a keen witness to her historical era. Since the late 1990s, she has documented the rapid changes in China through video, photography, sculpture and expanded installations,’ said Arrowsmith-Todd. ‘Always at the forefront of experimenting with new media, Cao’s universe is an artistic one where time is out of joint, reality slips into fantasy, people tap in and out of virtual realms, and radical, disjunctive upheavals are an everyday fact of life.’
Yin Cao added, ‘Cao Fei finds inspiration from her surroundings and applies a unique, subtle, lively and humorous approach to show how ordinary people cope with the changes brought about urbanisation and technological developments in their lives.’
Art Gallery of New South Wales director Michael Brand said: ‘This exhibition continues the Art Gallery’s long engagement with Chinese art, which began in the 1890s. Cao Fei’s connection to Sydney is multilayered. Sydney is the official sister city of her hometown, Guangzhou, and it is also the place her late sister, Cao Xiaoyun, called home for many years.’
‘Known for her compelling storytelling, he said, ‘Cao is one of the most prolific and globally influential contemporary Chinese artists working today and she remains at the forefront of new media. The Art Gallery’s exhibition will be unlike anything our visitors have experienced before – Cao’s unique blend of virtual worlds and cutting-edge technology creates playful and inventive multimedia installations that will transport visitors into her world.’
Mirroring the constant building and reinvention of space and people, scaffolding is interwoven throughout the exhibition, from the neon signage at the front, to the framing of the installations.
The entrance is through a reconstruction of the Hongxia Theatre, an abandoned cinema in Beijing that was eventually demolished, and that Cao Fei used as a studio for six years.
Other re-imaginings reflect Cat Fei’s long relationship with Sydney. The now-closed Sydney institution that was the yum cha restaurant the Marigold is there for all to sit in, in all its fabulous kitchsy glory, and the movie posters for films that used to be screened at the Harbour City Cinema, in Sydney’s Chinatown, have been displayed in a dark and colour- lit corridor.
Cao Fei’s sister, Cao Xiaoyun (1971–2022), was an artist who migrated from Guangzhou to Sydney in the late 1990s, the two locales being officially designated ‘sister cities’.
Golden Wattle 2024, is a touching installation that brings elements from paintings and family photos to life by presenting Xiaoyun’s artworks alongside an interview with family members and friends in an intimate living room setting.
Cao Fei describes her sister as ‘a window that opened up Australian life to me’. ‘Although my sister’s story adds a little sadness to this exhibition,’ she continues, ‘it is not that heavy. She was optimistic and loved Australia, and her life was filled with beauty.’
Film is maybe the most brilliant part of Fei’s work. The 2019 feature film Nova, about getting trapped in cyberspace is shown, as is Cosplayers 2004, which looks at how the activity of cosplay transgresses play, hobby, identity and obsession. RMB City 2007–11 explore virtual ad altered realities through Second Life, and Hip hop: Sydney 2024 has over 60 community members from Sydney dancing in the streets and beyond.
The whole show is a thrilling ride into the intersections of music, film, identity, the Cultural Revolution, and particularly the effects of other cultures on China. Ideas around work and production, entered through the realm of the factory, a poignant symbol in and of China, has always been one of the most thoughtful parts of Cao Fei’s work. The layers and boundaries between that work and play, much like the porosity between the actual and imagined versions of the self that an individual can have, are never far away from Fei’s neon- informed productions.
This exhibition is also an opportunity to pause and contemplate the profound changes that are on the horizon, and the futures we are all barrelling towards, in the digital, local, virtual, urban, metaphysical, personal, real and unreal worlds.
Fittingly for an exhibition that more than most, is about all of us, there’s a great selection of bits and bobs to take home in the gift shop. Even more important than the stickers, there’s a very thoughtfully curated selection of books, to delve deep into our collective futures with.
The exhibition is accompanied by a publication designed by Sydney-based artist and graphic designer Evi O that captures the playfulness of Cao Fei’s art. The publication features reproductions of key works and new writing from contributors including the exhibition co-curators Ruby Arrowsmith-Todd and Yin Cao, as well as renowned scholar of Chinese contemporary art Hou Hanru and Asian–Australian writers Michael Sun and Pao-chen Tang.
Cao Fei: My City is Yours 曹斐: 欢迎登陆 is exclusively on show at the Art Gallery from 30 November 2024 to 13 April 2025. A Gallery Pass providing entry to Cao Fei and Magritte exhibitions at the Art Gallery is available, as well as an Art Pass, which additionally grants entry to the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia exhibition Julie Mehretu: A Transcore of the Radical Imaginatory.
The Sydney International Art Series is a NSW Government initiative through its tourism and major events agency, Destination NSW, in collaboration with the Art Gallery of New South Wales and Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, to bring the world’s most outstanding international artists and their works exclusively to Sydney.
Lunar New Year 2025
Lion and dragon dance performance
Naala Badu building, Welcome Plaza Wednesday 29 January 2025, 6–6.30pm Free, no bookings required
Welcome in the Lunar New Year with a dynamic performance by local Sydney troupe Chinese Youth League Lion and Dragon Dance Australia.
Year of the Snake karaoke
Naala Badu building, lower level 2, Meers Hall Wednesday 29 January 2025, 6.30–9.30pm Free, no bookings required
Party like it’s 1989, 2001 or 2025 at our Year of
the Snake karaoke night, hosted by singer and multidisciplinary artist Rainbow Chan. Come dressed in your snake-themed best and perform your favourite hits or sit back and dine on dumplings
with beer. Prizes for best dressed and best performances awarded throughout the evening.
Performance by Lion Dance Kids
Naala Badu building, Welcome Plaza Saturday 1 February 2025, 10.30–11am
Experience the heart-thumping beats of Lunar New Year as dancers from Lion Dance Kids perform remarkable acrobatic stunts and storytelling through dance.
Dragon dance and puppet-making workshop
Naala Badu building, lower level 1, Learning Studio Saturday 1 February 2025, 11.30am, 12.30pm
Free, bookings required
Book in your 5–12-year old for a fun, creative workshop led by educators from Lion Dance Kids. They’ll hear about the storytelling and symbolism behind the dragon dance and learn some basic movements in costume then finish by making their own dragon puppet.
