Last 2 days to view Cao Fei’s latest artwork in Shanghai—a multi-media installation commissioned by Audemars Piguet Contemporary at West Bund Art & Design, which will close tomorrow Sunday 15 November. The piece, titled Isle of Instability, is the artist’s first large-scale installation to be exhibited since the start of the pandemic and responds at a personal level to the artist’s time living her family in Singapore during lockdown this year.
Cao Fei (Chinese: 曹斐; born 1978) is a Chinese multimedia artist born in Guangzhou. Fei has risen to global renown in the past two decades. Fei’s work, which includes video, performance, and digital media, captures her fascination with humanity and a response to the rapid technological developments experienced this century. The artist deals with themes of anticipation and questions the possible collapse of our future while proposing an escape, or a solution, through the potential of humanity: its dreams, imagination, creativity and the individual in relation to the collective. Some of her work is owned and displayed by The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.
Audemars Piguet Contemporary was engaged in developing a Studio Audemars Piguet artwork with Cao Fei in October 2019 before Covid-19 became a global pandemic. Due to the pandemic the story behind her artwork changed so together, Cao Fei and the Audemars Piguet Contemporary team agreed on a new subject matter for the art commission, that seemed more fitting in today’s climate.
Isle of Instability was imagined and produced in the artist’s apartment in Singapore, which became a makeshift studio during the ten months that she lived there with her family, away from her home, studio and day-to-day habits in Beijing. Reminiscent of the artist’s early low-tech DIY artworks, the multi-media installation is based on a documentary study conducted by the artist during quarantine. It explores the psychological and physical implications that lockdown had on the artist, her family and humanity. Isle of Instability comprises a two-room installation that visitors can walk through and experience at their own pace.
Isle of Instability is on view from 11 to 15 November 2020 at West Bund Art & Design Fair Shanghai, located at the Audemars Piguet space, Hall A of the West Bund Art Centre.
Address:
West Bund Art Centre, 2555 Long Teng Avenue, Xuhui District, Shanghai
