For the «Alphabet of Video Art» project, Shift Contemporary Art Gallery wrote a series of articles about the most prominent artists of the 21st century who systematically work with video.
We present the first article in this series: «Seeking a Person: Contemporary Themes in Xiao Fei’s Video Works»
Overview of the Cao Fei Exhibition: My City is Yours
Siao Fei’s artworks roam biennial exhibitions, museum, and gallery spaces across the globe; they are firmly integrated into the international context and accessible to viewers from diverse nations. However, she addresses universal themes with a distinct meditative focus—as if her gaze is directed not at what is immediately before her, but at the overarching picture composed of numerous shifting elements. In her video work, humor combines with melancholic sincerity, allowing issues of globalization, inequality, technocracy, and alienation to resonate not didactically, but lyrically.
What happens to a human being in a world where everything is subject to production, algorithms, and technological progress? In the article «Searching for Humanity: Contemporary Life in the Video Works of Xiao Fei, ” we examine how the Chinese artist seeks an answer to this question—among cosplayers, factory workers, residents of a virtual city, and science fiction movie heroes. In her work, comedy coexists with melancholy, and dreams of another life clash with the everyday reality from which it is not easily possible to break free.
From cities in Second Life to automated warehouses, from dancing in the middle of a factory floor to migrating consciousness into computer networks—Xiao Fei explores the chasm between the promises of the future and the human experience. I am interested in how, behind interfaces and production processes, she uncovers living people: their desires, loneliness, and attempts to find meaning in life. And how her videos return us to the question: whose utopia is being embodied in the world we are building, and what place does that leave for us?
Xiao Fei. Whose Utopia (2006) and Asia One (2018)
Overview of the Cao Fei Exhibition: My City Is Yours
