Cao Fei: The Nightmares of China’s Rejuvenation
Type
conference paper
Date Issued
2018-08-30
Author(s)
Abstract
Cao Fei (b. 1978) has accomplished the rare feat of establishing her credentials as a
superstar contemporary artist both in Mainland China and abroad, managing to seamlessly fuse commercial appeal with social critique and satire. Spanning across a range of traditional and digital media such as video, performance and photography, Cai Fei’s artworks have been described as representative of the sensibility of China’s post-Reform urban youth — a critique of the social milieu of this population and the epitome of the globalising and localising forces that have been shaping China’s new youth culture at the beginning of the Twenty-first
century. This paper discusses Cai Fei’s internationally acclaimed oeuvre, focussing in particular on her most recent artworks such as La Town (2014) and Rumba II: Nomad (2015) to reflect on the dreams and nightmares of China’s youth in the era of the supposed “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation”. Drawing connections with 1990s Chinese art such as works by Zhang Dali (b. 1963) as well as contemporaneous literary phenomena, in Cao Fei’s works this study highlights a growing discomfort — even a “humanistic concern” — with the realities of urban redevelopment, online cultural prosumption, and societal change in today’s China.
superstar contemporary artist both in Mainland China and abroad, managing to seamlessly fuse commercial appeal with social critique and satire. Spanning across a range of traditional and digital media such as video, performance and photography, Cai Fei’s artworks have been described as representative of the sensibility of China’s post-Reform urban youth — a critique of the social milieu of this population and the epitome of the globalising and localising forces that have been shaping China’s new youth culture at the beginning of the Twenty-first
century. This paper discusses Cai Fei’s internationally acclaimed oeuvre, focussing in particular on her most recent artworks such as La Town (2014) and Rumba II: Nomad (2015) to reflect on the dreams and nightmares of China’s youth in the era of the supposed “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation”. Drawing connections with 1990s Chinese art such as works by Zhang Dali (b. 1963) as well as contemporaneous literary phenomena, in Cao Fei’s works this study highlights a growing discomfort — even a “humanistic concern” — with the realities of urban redevelopment, online cultural prosumption, and societal change in today’s China.
Language
English
HSG Classification
contribution to scientific community
Event Title
22nd Biennial Conference of the European Association for Chinese Studies
Event Location
University of Glasgow, UK
Event Date
29.08.18-01.09.18
Official URL
Subject(s)
Division(s)
Eprints ID
255013
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Name
Cao Fei EACS 2018.pdf
Size
37.64 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
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