Lenbachhaus Munich has a visual treat in store for visitors with the exhibition ‘Meta-mentary’. On display are works by Chinese multimedia artist Cao Fei. In her films, photographs and walk-in multimedia installations, Cao Fei deals with the economic and social transitions of living conditions that affect her just as much as all of us.
The exhibition is comprised of videos, installations and photographs that explore topics such as urbanization, virtuality and identity. In her work, Cao Fei combines elements from pop culture with dystopian visions of the future to create captivating artwork that provokes thought, reflecting the challenges of our day and age.
For her work, the artist visits the virtual world herself with her avatars and documents her perception and appropriation of virtual realities in a unique visual language – creating distinctive artistic spaces. Her works alternate between melancholy and humor, between utopia and dystopia, between beauty and horror.
Cao Fei is recognized around the world as one of the most significant post-digital artists. The term ‘post-digital’ was coined in the early 2000s and refers to an art form whose most distinguishing characteristic is that it deals thematically with the pervasion of digital technology into every aspect of our everyday lives. Post-digital art originates in the digital domain and appropriates its digital structures and characteristics.
Cao Fei was born in 1978 in Guangzhou, China, as the daughter of two artists and graduated from the local state art academy in 2001. As a child, she grew up in the Pearl River Delta, an area of China marked at the time by rapid economic growth and urban development. Pop culture, computer games, consumer electronics, and the latest technologies were her companions as a youth. Since 2006, she has been living and working in Peking.
Cao Fei’s work has been displayed at numerous international exhibitions: Shanghai Biennale 2004, Moscow Biennale 2005, Taipei Biennale 2006, Sydney Biennale 2006 and 2010, Istanbul Biennale 2007, Yokohama Triennale 2008, Venice Biennale 2003, 2007 and 2015. Selected solo exhibitions include: MoMA PS1, New York, 2016; Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong, 2018; K21, Düsseldorf, 2018; Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2019; Serpentine Galleries, London, 2020; UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, 2021; MAXXI Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo, Rome, 2021; Pinacoteca de São Paolo 2023. In 2024, she was awarded the SCAD deFINE ART prize.
The project was curated by Eva Huttenlauch with the support of the BMW Group.
Municipal Gallery in Lenbachhaus and Kunstbau, Luisenstraße 33, 80333 Munich.
www.lenbachhaus.de