Shining a Light on Chinese Workers - New York Times

by Farah Nayeri         March 8, 2019

Her art has sometimes involved creating an avatar of herself, sending robot vacuum cleaners into an urban demolition zone, and capturing the lives of workers in a light bulb factory in the Pearl River Delta region of China.

She is Cao Fei, a notable exception among the big names in Chinese contemporary art.

She works in multimedia — film, video, virtual reality and installation — and is known for her surreal depictions of the everyday human repercussions of China’s fast-growing, hyper-industrialized economy.

That she has risen to prominence at a young age as a woman in her field makes her stand out among women artists across the globe and throughout history, who have often been overlooked, or recognized only belatedly, in a field dominated by men.

That distinction is not something that seems to concern her. “I never think about it,” she said in a recent interview.

Born in the port city of Guangzhou in 1978, she comes from an artistic family — her mother was one of the few women sculptors of her generation in China, and her father, also a sculptor, made portrait statues of Chinese leaders such as Deng Xiaoping.

Her breakthrough work was “Whose Utopia?” (2006), a 20-minute film shot in a light bulb factory and commissioned by the Siemens Arts Program. The film focuses on individual factory workers as they carry out their painstaking and repetitive tasks.

Then a few of them act out their dreams, right there on the factory floor: twirling in a ballerina tutu, strumming an electric guitar, practicing hip-hop moves, dancing in a peacock-patterned dress.

In a subsequent project, Ms. Cao created China Tracy — her avatar — in Second Life, and spent several hours a day inventing a life (and even a love life) for her character. She later made a film out of the experience.

Last year, Ms. Cao produced “Asia One,” a follow-up to her light-bulb factory film, shot in a gigantic warehouse that handles orders for an online retailer. This time, there are only two human employees; everything else is performed by sophisticated, fast-moving robots and machinery.

Ms. Cao is now putting on exhibitions at major international museums. She had her first solo show in the United States at MoMA PS1 in New York in 2016, and is currently part of the group show “Is This Tomorrow?” at the Whitechapel Gallery in London, where artist-and-architect tandems have been asked to imagine the future.

For her joint contribution she worked with Mono Office, the Beijing-based architectural practice, conceiving a device that collects and dispenses ideas, concepts and designs that otherwise exist only digitally, on a computer. In June, Ms. Fei is getting a solo show at the Pompidou Center in Paris, and will present, among other things, a science fiction movie.

The following conversation with Ms. Cao (who spoke English with the help of her studio assistant) has been edited and condensed.

Why is it difficult for women in China to become artists?

I think this is related to traditional culture. Women are less ambitious, and more tied to the family. I teach a lot of students, and many art students are female, but not too many become artists. Maybe they become designers, or work in museums, or are part of the culture industry.

Some female students come to my studio, and I always hear that their parents don’t want them to become artists, because parts of society still see art as an unstable profession. So some female art students still face quite a lot of pressure from their family.

Why did you not pursue more traditional art disciplines like your parents?

My parents taught in the art school, so naturally I studied at that school. I think I saw too much calligraphy, Chinese painting, sculpture. I never had an interest in trying these traditional disciplines.

After China’s open-door policy, all these moving images, films, pop culture arrived. I naturally wanted to use the digital camera to express myself.

Can you talk about the 2006 film you made in the light bulb factory?

It was the first time I accepted a corporate project from a brand. The fact that I could use their right of access to the factory attracted me. I knew that, normally, it wasn’t easy to get permission to go to the factory. Also, I was concerned about all the news reports about workers in the Pearl River Delta. I thought it was the right time to really look at this myself. I decided to spend half a year there.

It took an hour from my studio to the factory, so I went there two or three times a week. The Chinese managers were not really happy, because I spent too much time in the factory.

Did you find it sad watching the workers?

I think it’s a complicated feeling. They’re happy and also they are sad. Like the lady doing the peacock dance in the factory. We still keep in touch. She’s become a very successful businesswoman in the south, and is not in the factory anymore.

But as an artist, do you see factory life and the Chinese industrial miracle as something of a human nightmare?

I don’t think it’s a nightmare. For the Asia One project, I visited all these logistics companies, and I even went to workers’ homes. They all understand that they have to endure difficult living conditions. In China, it’s normal. Even if you work in a restaurant or a hotel, it’s the same: every day, you repeat the same actions.

How has China changed since the light bulb film?

China has changed a lot. Everybody can see it. It’s stronger and stronger, and more powerful. They have the power to have trade wars with America. All these international companies want to come to China, because the market is big here.

For the country, it’s more and more challenging. Because they’re stronger, they have more and more responsibility. So let’s see how China plays this role.

My father is 85 years old. He was born in 1933, before the new China, and he has seen a lot of changes in China. He always says to me that any one of us is just a tiny dot in these big waves of history. We’re like nothing, like a very small point. So we have to try not to get affected.

Do you think you will ever make work about a different reality than China?

Maybe, yes. Sometimes I think about making a movie in New York or in another city, because when I stay in other cities, I have ideas. I think emotion is the same. That’s why your work can go to different countries, and people like it and they want to know it.