Cao Fei’s My City is Yours is not just an exhibition – it is a radical reimagining of city life, meticulously conceived and constructed to transport audiences through layers of memory, technology, and cultural transformation. Based in Beijing, Cao Fei (b. 1978 Guangzhou, China) is one of the world’s leading contemporary artists whose practice examines China’s rapid urbanisation, globalisation and digital revolution, translating the metropolis of the city and its inhabitants into photography, film, virtual reality, gaming technology and installation, often with elements of subversion and humour.
Co-curated by the Art Gallery’s curator of film, Ruby Arrowsmith-Todd, and curator of Chinese art, Yin Cao, My City is Yours is a multi-layered cityscape reminiscent of downtown Shanghai, Hong Kong or Beijing where pop culture, retro sci-fi, and cyber aesthetics collide with bright neon lights, retro architecture and old-world charm. The city is both real and familiar, yet simultaneously virtual and warped. The entranceway to the exhibition, a reconstruction of Beijing’s demolished Hongxia Theatre (2019) best captures this dynamic tension.
Exploring key themes of the city and technology and divided into a series of civic zones, the exhibition comprises important works from the 1990s to the present. Highlights include Cosplayers (2004) which captures a subculture generation of Chinese youth who dress up as characters from Japanese manga and anime, morphing into avatars as young knights and fairy princesses in elaborate costumes. In a statement on the manufacturing of cheap consumer goods, Whose Utopia (2006) depicts migrant workers dancing to a rock band across a factory floor in Foshan, China. RMB City (2007–11) is an ambitious commentary on the online platform, Second Life, and comprised a digital city with a running economy and manifesto constructed by Cao Fei and a team of coders and programmers throughout Asia. Amusingly, Cao’s own avatar China Tracy presided as mayor over the virtual metropolis.
The exhibition designer Charlotte Lafont-Hugo, Director of BEAU Architects, has previously collaborated with Cao Fei on exhibitions at Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong (2018) and at the UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Shanghai (2021). These recent projects initiated the conceptual development of two key design devices – the movie set aesthetic reminiscent of Italy’s Cinecittà Studios, and the workshop or factory, constructed as volumetric spaces, where installations could be presented in semi-enclosed environments.
Cao Fei was clear on her vision: “I don’t want a European-style exhibition with low sound, white walls. I wanted a show that is boisterous like the mall or market – true to my surroundings.” The Art Gallery’s new northern building, Naala Badu has provided the expansive architecture and context within which to present this remarkable exhibition and its transformational design. Director Michael Brand concurs, “My City is Yours is unlike anything the Gallery has ever staged – highly inventive and immersive with a sense of scale.” Indeed, the exhibition is anything but conventional. The exhibition’s architecture is itself a work of art, comprising 7 zones, which feature different bodies of work, and that effectively blur boundaries of overlapping experience.
Lafont-Hugo describes the design as a “centripetal organisation, spaces organised around a central plaza known as the ‘outside’, an expanded installation environment. Articulated around the central plaza are 4 volumetric spaces constructed from recycled wood and scaffolding, or micro-architecture created for the projects Nova, La Town, RNB City and Hongxia. We also created micro-architecture for The Golden Wattle; however, this is a quieter, more contemplative moment.” The exhibition has also successfully integrated additional sub-spaces, cinemas, narrow corridors reminiscent of streets, a sunken foam pit, or larger areas such as The Marigold. One is gently forced to duck and weave, and ultimately get a bit lost in the clashing cacophony of visual saturation, neon lights, videos and music that make up the cityscape.
My City is Yours is however, a reflection of Sydney as a city and debuts three new site-specific works. Filmed in more than 20 locations in Haymarket and Burwood and featuring a cast of over 60 community members, the music video Hip hop: Sydney (2024) includes local artists, aunties, chefs and shopkeepers performing dance moves to new music by Korean Australian musicians1300. In a nostalgic homage, Cao Fei has also reconstructed the famous Sydney restaurant, The Marigold (2024), known for its yum cha, red and black floral-patterned carpet, retro 1990s Canto-decor and crystal chandeliers. The third project is a deeply personal work comprising archival materials, artworks and family photographs housed within an intimate space titled, The Golden Wattle (2024). The new work is dedicated to Cao’s late sister Cao Xiaoyun (1971–2022), an artist who migrated from Guangzhou to Sydney in the late 1990s and had a particular fondness for Australia’s national flower.
Reflecting on integrating concepts of exhibition design, Lafont-Hugo posits: “I like the notion of exhibition design that is either extremely visible, like Cao Fei, or that is extremely invisible.” Further adding, “What is successful is, either you are inside a space where the artwork is positioned with balance and there is no display language or devices; or you are in an exhibition such as this, where it is so intense, so merged with the artworks.”
As audiences navigate through the exhibition, encountering avatars, the metaverse, fellow humans, and soft creatures, it is not only an experience of art but a multi-layered narrative of urban life, cyber technology, and human connection. Cao Fei invites us to see cities not as static environments but as dynamic, ever-changing worlds, offering a profound reflection on our contemporary existence.
Exhibition Information:
Cao Fei: My City is Yours
29 November 2024 – 13 April 2025
Art Gallery of New South Wales | Naala Badu
Link: www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/whats-on/exhibitions/cao-fei
