Cao Fei (b. 1978) was recently voted “one of the most influential artists in the world.” Her latest exhibition shows us why. My City is Yours, opening at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, is the largest display of the Guangzhou- born, Beijing-based artist’s work ever seen in Australia. Visitors enter via a replica 1960s Beijing cinema foyer, and exit through an homage to a popular Sydney yum cha restaurant. The show unfolds like a city of screens and pixels, mediated by gaming technologies, the metaverse and VR. It’s a place that is under construction, where neighbourhoods are razed overnight and workers compete for jobs with robots. Cao has documented China’s rapid urbanisation and digital revolutions for over two decades, harnessing a unique blend of surreal humour and cyber futurism to hold up a mirror to the new millennium. Ahead of the opening, we caught up with Yin Cao, who is Curator of Chinese Art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, and a co-curator of My City is Yours.
A: It feels like a significant moment for Cao right now. What’s the story behind the new Sydney exhibition?
YC: The Art Gallery of New South Wales is one of Australia’s flagship art museums and the state’s leading visual arts institution. Given our location, we pay particular attention to fostering and strengthening partnerships and connections both nationally and within the Asia-Pacific region. We have a long history of staging exhibitions of Chinese art, past and present, going back to the 1940s. Whilst our earlier shows have predominantly focused on ancient China and historical art forms, recently we have been seeking contemporary artists. Cao Fei was a perfect match. She is one of the most dynamic contemporary artists on the world stage, creating a rich body of videos, photographs and multimedia installations. Her work explores cultural changes in China since the late- 1970s, with urbanisation and technological advances having dramatic consequences for ordinary people and their lives. Globalisation has delivered changes around the world, and Cao’s works since 2006 have been particularly interested in what’s been happening virtually – occupying a cyberspace that is inhabited by billions of citizens across the planet.
A: What can you tell us about the artist’s background?
YC: Cao Fei was born into an artistic family in 1978, a significant year in China. The government enacted its “Reform and Opening Up” policy, and her hometown, Guangzhou (Canton), was at the forefront of a new strategy that permitted an influx of popular culture from nearby Hong Kong, but also Macao, Taiwan and the west. In the artist’s own words: “We were able to see a world completely different from the rest of China – in entertainment, perspectives, pop music and other ways that pictured and revealed life outside ours.” Having grown up in this dynamic environment, Cao is influenced by what she calls the Canton spirit of “being spontaneous and daring to do”, and an unflinching determination to retain an open mind and pay attention to emerging trends.
A: From George Orwell, J.G. Ballard and Margaret Atwood, to Octavia E. Butler, Liu Cixin and Yōko Ogawa, speculative fiction, politics and dystopia have long gonehand-in-hand. Nova (2019), is part of this tradition – set amidst a short-lived rapprochement between Mao and Stalin. What is the key message of this piece of work?
YC: People, factories and social change are key to Cao’s work. She tries to “show the relationship between them as they connect to our times, history and human feelings – whether it be memory, hope, disappointment, despair or frustration.” Nova (2019) is a sci-fi film in which a Chinese scientist and his team have a secret mission of building a new computer platform, with the goal of enabling not only extraordinary calculations, but also the ability to travel through time and space. The scientist falls in love with a Soviet counterpart who was amongst a group of experts sent to China to aid the mission. After failing several experiments, he subjects his son to “Hongxia Time Software,” transforming him into digital matter. Lost in the cyberspace, the son struggles to communicate with his father and return to the real world. Cao reflects on this: “Time, for us, is too real, it’s hard to escape. That’s why the scientist sends his son into the machine; maybe I want to escape the timeline? And just swim across it.”
A: Over the last two decades, Cao’s photographs and films have documented shifts in Chinese cultural life. What kinds of landmark events does the exhibition deal with? How did you – and the artist – approach the complex task of communicating them with an audience?
YC: Cao utilises many different materials, such as video, installation, performance and electronic media. In so doing, she creates connections and discussions between various genres. Her early works reveal an interest in youth and popular culture and an acute sensitivity to the societal transformation brought on by urbanisation and globalisation in the Pearl River Delta in China’s south. Since 2006, when she moved to Beijing, Cao has expanded her spectrum from the real world to the virtual, exploring the relationship between humans and technology. There’s a sincerity and deep empathy that evokes similar feelings in her audiences. Cao says: “My work will not give you a definitive conclusion. It is not a conclusive declaration, but rather open and transparent.”
A: Where does Cao sit within the contemporary art world?
YC: Cao has been referred to as the “leading figure of the new media art of the new generation” and a key representative of the “new humankind.” She has been a frequent guest at many important biennials, like Istanbul, Moscow, Shanghai, Sharjah, Sydney, Taipei and Venice. She’s had solo exhibitions at key galleries and museums, such as MoMA PS1; Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong; K21, Düsseldorf; Centre Pompidou; Serpentine Galleries; MAXXI, the National Museum of 21st Century Arts, Rome; Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen; Pinacoteca Contemporânea, São Paulo; and the Lenbachhaus Munich, earlier this year. Her retrospective exhibition at UCCA Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing in 2021 marked the artist’s homecoming after many years of international acclaim. Her works have also entered collections in many public galleries, museums and art institutions. Cao once said: “I believe that spiritual transgression, artistic openness, and the exploration and pursuit of multi- cultural integration are essentially about finding an outlet for ‘free expression’.” Her dedication to “free expression” makes her unique and irreplaceable in the eyes of the young people who continue to be deeply moved by her artworks.
A: The artist’s past exhibitions have often included replica buildings, including cinemas and restaurants. Why?
YC: From the very beginning, Cao expressed the desire to create a show “that is boisterous, like the mall or the market. That’s what China’s like”, instead of “a European-style exhibition – low sound, white walls.” Working with architects Charlotte Lafont-Hugo and Gilles Vanderstocken of Beau Architects in Hong Kong, we have developed what we believe is an exceptional design that conceptually merges with the Art Gallery to enhance the visitor’s experience. It is a neon-lit city where visitors will watch wondrous and surprising stories told at a central plaza, in a theatre, a restaurant, a factory, transit node and a haven for spiritual contemplation. These tales, though, will happen in a non-linear timeframe, where real and virtual worlds intertwine. We will also have sections where attendees can experience Cao’s VR work, The eternal wave (2020), and a new game, Super delivery (2024).
A: What does Cao want audiences to take away from this?
YC: My City is Yours is best explained by the artist, who says: “I hope that, through this exhibition, Sydney audiences can ‘land’ in the ‘world’ I present. What awaits them after travelling through the wormhole is a city that is no longer restricted by physical boundaries. It will feel like a platform where we can visit and communicate with one another. I wonder: can we meet in the past and greet each other in the future?”
A: What can you tell us about the two new commissions included in the Art Gallery of New South Wales show?
YC: One is a light-hearted work, titled Hip Hop Sydney. With assistance from the Art Gallery of New South Wales’ team and resident Chinese communities, especially Soul of Chinatown, Cao filmed more than 60 people – from young cosplayers to a 90-year-old Chinese Australian – performing dance moves. These were choreographed by local dancer Azzam Mohamedq, in Sydney’s Haymarket and Burwood Chinatowns, to a track by Korean-Australian hip hop artists 1300. Golden wattle, meanwhile takes its name from a watercolour by Cao’s late sister Xiaoyun (1971-2022), who had a particular fondness for the golden wattle (Acacia pycnantha), Australia’s national flower. This moving project is an exhibition within an exhibition, presenting Xiaoyun’s paintings from her time in the city, alongside family photos, personal items and a documentary. The wattle, called Xiangximu in Chinese, meaning “wood of lovesickness”, em- bodies the yearning felt by Cao Xiaoyun’s family and friends.
A: Is Cao optimistic about the role of technology?
YC: Visitors will notice octopus representations throughout the show. It’s a metaphor. “The octopus is capricious, almost like the fate of humans, our destinations arbitrary and unknown. This animal makes me feel as if some invisible hands, or something bigger beyond our universe, is looking at us – like in the American film Arrival (2016), which I like a lot. Human civilisation seems to have reached its limit. Is there another dimension? No-one knows.” In an interview I did with Cao, she said: “I think humanity’s view of technology is, sometimes, too optimistic. We did not expect that we both fear and love technological advancements …. It’s totally different from the early 2000s during the RMB period, when we were very optimistic. I am not pessimistic, but I’m sceptical. I wonder whether the cyberspace still offers an escape for us?
Words: Eleanor Sutherland
Cao Fei: My City is Yours
Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney From 30 November | artgallery.nsw.gov.au
Image Credits:
1. Cao Fei, Nova, (2019) (video still), single-channel HD video, colour, sound, 97:13 min, 2.35:1 © Cao Fei, Vitamin Creative. Courtesy Sprüth Magers.
2. Cao Fei, Nova, (2019) (video still), single-channel HD video, colour, sound, 97:13 min, 2.35:1 © Cao Fei, Vitamin Creative. Courtesy Sprüth Magers.
3. Cao Fei, Haze and fog 04, (2013), inkjet print on paper 70 × 105 cm © Cao Fei, Courtesy the artist, Vitamin Creative Space and Sprüth Magers.
4. Cao Fei, Nova, (2019) (video still), single-channel HD video, colour, sound, 97:13 min, 2.35:1 © Cao Fei, Vitamin Creative. Courtesy Sprüth Magers.
5. Cao Fei, Nova, (2019) (video still), single-channel HD video, colour, sound, 97:13 min, 2.35:1 © Cao Fei, Vitamin Creative. Courtesy Sprüth Magers.
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