- AsiaSociety.org:
- Arts |
- Education |
- Policy |
- Business |
- Countries |
- Lifestyle |
- Calendar ::
- MUSEUM HOME
Cao Fei
Cao Fei (born 1978, China)
Rabid Dogs, 2002
Single channel video, sound, 8 minutes
Asia Society, New York: Promised Gift of Harold and Ruth Newman.
Cao Fei, one of the most acclaimed female Chinese artists of the post-Tiananmen generation, works in photography, video, film, and more recently, in the virtual realm of Second Life. Throughout her experimentations in varying media, she consistently questions human nature—how we all tend to think and act—as we live in the global society. In Rabid Dogs, Cao’s video camera aims at the growing consumerism in today’s China. People dressed in Burberry’s tartan plaid roam around on all fours in a modern office setting, their faces painted like dogs, in a style evoking Chinese opera face painting. Their seemingly rabid consumerism renders them unrecognizable as human beings, challenging the viewer’s understanding of human nature.
Cao Fei was born in Guangzhou, China, in 1978. She is one of a small number of acclaimed women artists in China, and one of the first artists to experiment with the creative potential of Second Life, a virtual world. In her early photographs and video art, Cao Fei focused on people’s dreams, fantasies, and the social changes caused by commercialism and technological advancement. She has continued to explore these themes in her ongoing project in Second Life, which began in 2007 with her work iMirror.
Selected Bibliography
Kold, Anders, Michael Juul Holm, and Tine Colstrup, eds. The World is Yours. Humlebæk, Denmark: Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2009.
Cao, Fei, ed. RMB City. Guangzhou: Vitamin Creative Space, 2008.
Hou, Hanru, Hu Fang, and Hans Ulrich Obrist. Journey. Paris and Guangzhou: Frac Ile-de-France / Le Plateau and Vitamin Creative Space, 2008.
Cao, Fei. Hip Hop New York, Fukuoka, Guangzhou 2003-2006. Essay by Philip Tinari. New York: Lombard-Freid Projects, 2006.
Share