Cao Fei, born 1978 in Guangzhou, China, is a pioneering creator of digital worlds. Her early works have influenced an entire generation of artists from Asia and beyond. For over two decades, she has made art—from video installations and digital simulations to virtual-reality settings—grappling with the impact on human life of wrenching societal and technological transformations, establishing her renown as a leading thinker about art, media, technology, and the future.

In her multifaceted body of work, Cao Fei explores central aspects of our contemporary world and examines what it means to be human within the dynamic fabric of the 21st century. Working across media, she combines documentary approaches with surreal elements, thereby creating spaces for deep reflection. The focus is on how economic growth, technological development, and globalization influence our society, without ever descending into pessimism about the future.

A defining feature of her work is the precise interweaving of reality and fiction: speculative and surreal elements permeate her often almost documentary-like works, opening up new perspectives on the everyday. This aspect is underscored by elaborate installations that materialize elements from the videos in the exhibition space, further blurring the boundary between the physical and virtual realms.

Cao Fei is the winner of the SCAD deFINE ART (2024) and Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize (2021). She was nominated for the Hugo Boss Prize and the Future Generation Art Prize in 2010 and was awarded Best Young Artist and Best Artist at the China Contemporary Art Award (CCAA) in 2006 and 2016 respectively.

Cao Fei has already had numerous international solo exhibitions, including at the following institutions: Museum of Art Pudong, Shanghai (2024), the Lenbachhaus, Munich (2024), Pinacoteca de São Paulo (2023), MAXXI, Rome (2021), UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2021), Espace Louis Vuitton, Munich (2021), Serpentine Gallery, London (2020), Centre Pompidou, Paris (2019), Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf (2018), Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong (2018), and MoMA PS1, New York (2016).

Her most recent group exhibition participations include Paraventi, Fondazione Prada, Milan (2023), A Gateway to Possible Worlds, Centre Pompidou-Metz, Metz (2022), Post-Capital, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen (2022), Is This Tomorrow?, Whitechapel Gallery, London (2019), Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2019), Extreme. Nomads, MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt a.M. (2018), and One Hand Clapping, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2018).

Cao Fei has taken part in many biennials and triennials, including the Shanghai Biennale (2004), the Moscow Biennale (2005), the Taipei Biennial (2006), the Biennale of Sydney (2006 and 2010), the Istanbul Biennial (2007), the Yokohama Triennale (2008), and the Venice Biennale (2003, 2007, and 2015).