Cao Fei: Utopia
Starting Date: Saturday, 13 February 2010
Finishing Date: Sunday, 16 May 2010
One of the international stars of a new generation of Chinese artists, Cao Fei has garnered a reputation for producing highly seductive multi-media installations that respond to the manic pace and dizzying scale of urbanisation in her culture. The first solo exhibition of Cao Fei’s work in Australasia, Utopia is an opportunity for audiences to think about the excess and fantasy of our current social and economic condition.
RMB City, a recent work, was created by Cao Fei’s online identity China Tracy (with her platinum hair and suit of armour) on the Creative Commons Island of Kula. Named after Chinese money, RMB City shows a perverse view of Beijing—a blend of communism, socialism, and capitalism. Like Beijing itself, it is constantly under construction, candy-striped smoke stacks suggest continuous industrial production and ships move goods swiftly in and out of port. A giant shopping cart, filled with skyscrapers and religious monuments, floats nearby; and Tiananmen Square has been converted into a swimming pool.
A joint project by ARTSPACE Auckland and the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane.
Cao Fei
RMB City: A Second Life City Planning by China Tracey 2007/9
Single channel video projection.
Image courtesy of the artist
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