Artist portrays a changing vista

At an exhibition, a mother and her child stand side by side, each captivated by different aspects of the display. The mother recognizes elements from her own youth, while her daughter is entranced by the interactive, dreamlike environment — a blend of maze, theater and amusement park — presented through virtual reality and multimedia.

This scene has vividly played out in artist Cao Fei's mind, illustrating how her work resonates across generations. She imagines older visitors appreciating the historical context and social commentary, while younger ones are drawn to the immersive, surreal aspects.

Cao's solo show, Chaoxi Zhouhe (Tidal Flux), is now running at the Museum of Art Pudong in Shanghai till Nov 17.

"The exhibition is relatively long, and footfall may be much more than my other exhibitions at home and abroad, thanks to tourists, art lovers and families with children. This will be an interesting opportunity and a new experience for me as an artist," says the 46-year-old.

Naming the exhibition Chaoxi Zhouhe was a joint decision by Cao and her curators, Nancy Spector from the United States, Tan Xue from Hong Kong and Yang Beichen from Beijing.

Cao explains chaoxi (tide) symbolizes the essence of time and cyclical movement; and various phenomena, such as the rhythmic phases of the moon and the menstrual cycles of women, operate in patterns akin to tides.

The word zhouhe originates from the work Guanzi Zhouhe written by Guan Zhong, a philosopher of the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 BC), signifying a state of harmonious coexistence between heaven and earth.

Major transformations

The exhibition presents about 30 groups of works spanning nearly three decades, including many signature and long-term projects of Cao.

Her works have reflected the era in which they were created, offering a compassionate portrayal of societal evolution and the lives of ordinary individuals.

At a forum at the opening of the exhibition in June, Ye Ying, editor-in-chief of The Art Journal, pointed out that Cao's works often reflect an intimate concern for individuals amid the changes in China and imbue ordinary people with dramatic expression.

Born into an artistic family in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, Cao spent her formative years amid the trailblazing wave of China's reform and opening-up. Consequently, her early major works capture the rise and fall of manufacturing.

Whose Utopia, created in 2006, mirrors the evolution of factories in the Pearl River Delta region in southern China, serving as a microcosm of the nation's "world factory" and representing a focal point for Chinese engagement and interpretation within the realm of globalization.

A reverberation of this work is Asia One, which was created in 2018 in a giant warehouse of JD, one of China's biggest e-commerce platforms. It is a response to the transformation and renewal of the manufacturing industry, Cao explains.

Tan, one of the curators, comments that in this period, Cao's works were rooted in the fertile ground of the city, brimming with "urban sophistication".

"She turned her inspiration toward the unsung heroes among those overlooked, little characters," Tan says.

Following her relocation to Beijing, Cao's creative background radiated from the Pearl River Delta, becoming more complex and diverse in response to the evolving times.

HX (2015-2024), known as Hongxia, is an art embodied with locality and connected between the past and the future. Combining virtual reality, video, installations and performance art, this project explores the possibilities of future societies, reflecting the profound impact of technological advancements on human life and social structures.

"Hongxia is a synthesis of all of Cao's previous creations," says Yang, another curator.

"It integrates her explorations of identity and the body, her observations of urban spaces, her focus on labor and factories, and her fascination with technology and media, all of which made up the grand project of Hongxia."

While Cao experimented with virtual reality and gaming technologies, she has recently pivoted back to a traditional subject and explored the theme of modern technological advancement, culminating in her ongoing project Dash (Jifei).

The unfinished project makes its debut at the Shanghai exhibition, presenting a novel farming scene in which drones hover in the sky and robots swarm on the ground.

Virtual realm

Over the past few decades, Cao has exhibited her works around the world, including a solo exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in Paris and a solo exhibition at the Serpentine Galleries in London.

She calls the ongoing Shanghai show a midterm retrospective, looking back to retrieve her creative process and what concerned her at different points. "It is new, but it is also old … It is the footprints of the era," she says.

Many of the works on display at the exhibition are presented in multimedia, using photography, virtual reality and video games. An early explorer in the virtual realm known as the "metaverse", Cao has been working on multimedia art since the rise of the current generation of art consumers.

She says that this design is an epoch-making presentation compared to the Shanghai museum's past art exhibitions and has been accepted by more audiences after her nearly 30 years of multimedia creation and experimentation.

Since 2007, she has been mirroring the entire era into a digital millennium, constructing a series of virtual worlds. RMB City (2007-2022) is a wondrous and bustling immersive metropolis Cao built by using Second Life, an online role-playing game. Her own avatar, China Tracy, serves as the guardian spirit and head proprietress of the city, an adventurous, fearless, whimsical and dazzling digital presence.

Modeling techniques back then ran the risk of being discredited in today's art exhibitions. However, Cao saw it as the sketches and watercolor manuscripts presented in any artist's retrospective, where people can see the process of creation from scratch.

Cao's works also show the process of derivative iteration from old to new media, just like the "evolution of mobile phones from 1G to 5G", she says.

As the metaverse gained wider acceptance, Cao, a pioneer in such world-building, continued her focus on cyberspace in 2022.

In the film Meta-mentary (2022), she documents people's evolving opinions about the metaverse; in Duotopia (2022-2024), she layers and interlaces numerous utopian realms within the metaverse; then, in the two-channel video installation Oz (2022), her new avatar, an exquisite androgynous figure, is enveloped in an electrifying atmosphere — a fusion of machine, octopus and anthropoid, this post-human creature exudes serenity.

She says visitors to the exhibition span generations. Some older viewers see a reflection of their collective past in her works like the HX project. Younger audiences may be drawn to interesting, immersive multimedia elements, even if they do not fully understand the deeper meaning.

"Visitors can sit, lie down and interact with the works, leading to unexpected discoveries. This interactive and engaging approach is what makes the exhibition truly captivating," says Li Minkun, chairman of the Museum of Art Pudong.

Zhang Shangqing contributed to this story.