Currently number 13 on Art Review’s ‘Power 100’, a list of the most influential people in the artworld, Cao Fei, born in Guangzhou in 1978, was one of the first artists to understand the possibilities of virtual reality and the metaverse. Her work, currently on show as part of Cao Fei: My City is Yours 欢迎登陆 at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, explores the dissolving boundaries between human and machine, reality and fantasy. It reveals the neon-saturated, layered archaeology of the contemporary metropolis: its private memories, demolished dreams, and obsolete utopian techno-futures.

Our long conversation last month covered a lot of ground: Cao’s love of MTV, Michael Jackson and Madonna; Guangzhou’s cosplay subculture; her first encounters with video in the 90s; her rejection of the ‘official’ art of the academy when she discovered the emergent Chinese avant-garde; works created for the Sydney exhibition, and her interest in urban histories.

The parallel, diasporic cityscapes of global Chinatowns particularly interest her. Not unlike the Chinese immigrants maintaining traditions in new lands, people persistently constructing their own realities populate Cao Fei’s works. The assembly-line workers at the Osram Lightbulb Factory in the lyrical Whose Utopia (2006), for example, dream of alternate selves—a ballerina, a breakdancer, a peacock dancer. Cao tells me the peacock dancer appeared unexpectedly at her Shanghai exhibition opening last year. Now a successful entrepreneur, she gave the artist her peacock costume as a memento of her former self. Like so many Chinese citizens in a world of tumultuous change—members of the diaspora, young cosplayers in Guangzhou, and even ‘China Tracy’, Cao’s Second Life avatar— she had seized the narrative.

Luise Guest: You’ve created a ‘magical metropolis’, a cityscape of dreams, desires, nostalgia. What was your vision for the show, for how audiences would experience it?

Cao Fei: Because this is not a new show, I mean, it’s not new work, it’s like a mid-career survey show. So, we always need a narrative to bring all these works together, right? And I deal with so many city projects: Beijing, Guangzhou, the hip hop series, even RMB City. So, I think the best way [to connect these works] is the city, because cities have so many levels, so many layers. They have cinemas, they have factories, they have restaurants, they have somewhere painful, somewhere we have memories. So, I think the city is like a vessel, like a container. It brings everything together.

LG: You said you didn’t want it to be a typical museum exhibition, with works installed in separate, box-like spaces.  What was your vision for how the exhibition space would look?

CF: The box is not the best condition for artworks … for example, in a survey show you don’t want to see so many boxes. Big box, small box, right? So how can we break the boundaries? And how to let people be more immersed in the show, so sometimes they forget they are in an exhibition? You think, maybe you are in an entertainment space, or a cinema, or elsewhere, you know. This is what I have been trying to do in the past several years.

LG: Audiences enter the exhibition through the replicated lobby of the Hongxia Theatre, a derelict, now-demolished cinema and ballroom built for workers in the enormous 738 and 774 electronics factory complexes around Jiuxianqiao.  You used it as your studio for several years, and as the setting for your haunting 2019 film, Nova. What does this theatre mean to you?

CF: This work doesn’t function just as the memory of the theatre, but it also has this very strong history. I started the Hongxia Theatre project because my old studio was demolished. So, when I found it, I thought it was a magical or dream studio. And I felt it was urgent to do something with the theatre, not just use it as a studio. When I learned that the Hongxia Theatre had this very grand background behind it, I thought I should be digging into more of the story behind it. I found a lot of things. The most important part is the electronics history of China. The factory developed the first computer in China—a huge computer, in 1950, supported by the Soviet Union. So, I think this is a very interesting background. I mean, in China today everyone has a cell phone, but nobody remembers that we also have this history. And another aspect is the relationship between the Soviet Union and China, they had, like, a ten-year marriage. I wanted to talk about that. And the theatre itself projected so many historical images in the past, including the films that my mum saw, like propaganda films … And that’s why the Hongxia Project is so difficult and so ambitious. It contains so much. In one space, one project.

LG: It also connects with how you seek abandoned spaces with historical significance in the process of transformation. You selected iconic ‘lost’ spaces in Sydney, like the Marigold Restaurant and the Harbour City movie theatre. How did you choose the places that feature in the exhibition? What were you looking for?

CF: When I did a site visit in Sydney last year, the museum introduced me to an association called the Soul of Chinatown [a non-profit organisation aiming to revitalise Sydney’s Chinatown after Covid]. Peter Wong Kee is one of the founders. He said: ‘You say what you want to see’, and they can try to give us a look. So, we talked with Peter’s 90-year-old father, George. I think he is quite an important person in the community. He gave us the background and history of Chinatown. And they also showed us some symbols of Chinatown, like the Marigold … and we went to Harbour City. Peter said all these places are important memories. But all these spaces now are closed. They also showed me the monorail station. And the shopping mall—not too many people there. I had an idea to use the Hip hop: Sydney [a project commissioned by AGNSW] to revitalise, to activate these spaces in some way. Then, you can see the young people dancing in the Marigold. And waiting for a train, but it never comes.

LG: You enter the exhibition through the Hongxia Theatre and exit through the replicated Marigold. So, it connects the two cities, and, of course, so does the commissioned work, The Golden Wattle, created in memory of your sister who lived here for many years. Sydney and Guangzhou are sister cities. Do you see any similarities between them?

CF: Sure. I think especially Chinatown. Also, I think the lifestyle and the food is very similar. The people who came from Canton, they moved their lifestyle here, they have so many yum cha, dim sum places. Even though Chinatown is not big, the old Chinese can continue their life. The traditions and the food are very well preserved here.

LG: You’ve said that your city is like an octopus— soft, floating, evolving. What can you tell me about the recurring image of the octopus in your work?

CF: The octopus is also about control—it’s scary and full of energy.

Luise Guest spoke with Cao Fei on Zoom in December 2024, assisted with translation at times by Xu Xiong.

My City is Yours 曹斐: 欢迎登陆
Cao Fei
Art Gallery of New South Wales
(Naala Badu, north building)
On now—13 April