Cao Fei

Cao Fei (b. 1978, Guangzhou) is an internationally-renowned Chinese contemporary artist. 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 developmental changes that are occurring in Chinese society today.

Cao Fei's works have been exhibited at a number of international biennales and triennales, including the Shanghai Biennale (2004), the Moscow Biennale (2005), the Taipei Biennial (2006), the 15th & 17th Biennale of Sydney (2006 and 2010), the Istanbul Biennial (2007), the Yokohama Triennale (2008) and the 50th, 52nd & 56th Venice Biennale (2003, 2007 and 2015).

Cao Fei’s major projects in recent years include a solo exhibition at MoMA PS1, New York (2016), the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Chinese Art Initiative at the Guggenheim Museum in New York (2018), a solo show at the Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong (2018), a retrospective at K21 Düsseldorf (2018), a solo exhibition at the Centre Pompidou, Paris (2019), a solo exhibition Blueprints at the Serpentine Galleries, London (2020). Cao Fei’s recent projects include a major retrospective Staging the Era at the UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2021), solo exhibitions at the MAXXI, the National Museum of 21st Century Arts, Rome (2021) and Pinacoeca Contemporânea, Sao Paulo (2023).

Cao Fei is a professor and a master advisor of the School of Experimental Art at the Central Academy of Fine Arts. She was also on the jury of The Selection Committee for the Curatorship of the 8th Berlin Biennale (2014), the jury of The Bonnefanten Award for Contemporary (2016), and the jury of Hugo Boss Asia Art Prize (2019). Cao Fei is the nominator of the Rolls-Royce Art Program Muse (2019) and the winner of the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize (2021).