Diving into digital worlds: Cao Fei – Meta-mentory

The Lenbachhaus invites visitors into digital worlds with the exhibition “Cao Fei – Meta-mentory”. The Kunstbau of the Lenbachhaus is bathed in subdued light, screens flicker everywhere and you get the feeling of being in a video arcade. As in the digital world, you quickly lose yourself in the exhibition, which is also due to the film material, which spans over eight hours. So it’s really not an exhibition that you can get through in one visit. As in the digital world, you can log out to return to the real world and then immerse yourself in Cao Fei’s visual worlds again on another visit.

Cao Fei was born in Guangzhou in 1978, the daughter of an artist and an artist. She is considered an important representative of post-digital art, creates spectacular visual worlds and deals with the economic and social changes of our time, which are primarily driven by technological changes. She grew up in the Pearl River Delta, an area of China that is one of the most populous and urbanized in the world. Rapid economic growth characterizes this region, which is experiencing considerable urban development as a result. In her youth, she was influenced by pop culture, computer games, consumer electronics and the latest technologies. Cao Fei completed her art studies at the Guangzhou State Academy of Art in 2001. She has lived and worked in Beijing since 2006.
In her artistic work, she focuses on the themes of digitalization and globalization, as well as the changes to and in urban and suburban structures. Her questions deal with how we humans live and how we react to developments and whether we adapt to them or whether we actively incorporate them into our lives.
Cao Fei works with the media of film and photography, but multimedia installations are also frequently to be found in her oeuvre. The focus is on economic and social upheavals, both in her personal life and in the world she shares with us. The avatars she has created, Oz and China Tracy, allow the artist to spend time in virtual worlds and spaces. She has developed an individual visual language and characteristic artistic spaces to document her perceptions and appropriations of digital realities from these worlds.

The exhibition in the Kunstbau of the Lenbachhaus is divided into five thematic areas, which serve to guide visitors through the artist’s universe of research and thought. The projects are linked by recurring themes or figures. Visitors walk through a course that is characterized by film installations. At the same time, visitors also become part of the installations, for example by taking a seat on camping chairs under a pavilion. Sitting there, you can watch the experiences captured on film by Cao Fei during the Covid-19 pandemic. The installation is entitled “A Holiday” and shows a film that the artist shot in Beijing’s parks in 2022. People had to live with many restrictions due to the global pandemic, so going to restaurants, getting together and even traveling were prohibited. They therefore went to parks to socialize with others or to do sports. The local recreation areas supposedly offered the opportunity to escape the curfews and contact bans, but picnics that people organized there were quickly broken up by supervisors. Signs also pointed out the coronavirus restrictions.
Leisure activities are a recurring theme in Cao Fei’s art, as they form a significant part of life in China. Social interaction and joint physical activity, often officially organized, form the focal point. They serve as a distraction from the lack of opportunities for political participation. Sport and physical activity also provide an important counterbalance to the mostly sedentary positions we adopt when we are out and about in the digital world. A badminton court, with rackets and shuttlecocks provided, offers visitors the opportunity to play a game.
One of Cao Fei’s key works is the “RMB City” complex. With her first avatar China Tracy, the artist entered the virtual world “Second Life” in 2006 and created the fictitious city “RMB City”. In the virtual world (metaverse) “Second Life”, people interact, play, trade and communicate with each other using their avatars. Visitors to the exhibition will have the opportunity to view several video projects created by the artist.

With her multimedia projects, Cao Fei documents how we cope with the beauty but also the dangers of a technologized, globalized and hyper-connected world. She shows us the physical and psychological effects this has on us. She also shows us how digital technologies are contributing to rapid social change and how human experiences are changing as a result, according to the exhibition organizers. The artist’s works move between melancholy and humor, between utopia and dystopia and between beauty and horror, as can be seen in the booklet accompanying the show.
The Lenbachhaus has thus succeeded in creating an exhibition that encourages reflection, lingering and questioning. This is exactly what the artist wants to achieve; she herself takes a critical look at digital topics and our actions in this digital world. The following quote from her can be found in the booklet accompanying the exhibition: “I deal with the digital, virtual world, but I also care about people’s real feelings.”
The exhibition at the Lenbachhaus runs from April 13 to September 8, 2024 and was curated by Eva Huttenlauch.