This major survey brings together three decades of work of Cao Fei, tracing the evolution of one of the most influential voices in contemporary art. From her early video works of the late 1990s and her groundbreaking exploration of the online world Second Life—which led to the creation of her virtual city RMB City (2007-2011)—the exhibition charts Cao Fei’s journey through film, installation, computer games, virtual reality simulations, and her newest work, DASH (2026). Cao Fei examines the profound transformations that have reshaped Chinese society at a furious pace—from rapid urbanization and industrialization to technological innovation—by telling stories about the people who live through them. A pioneer of digital art, Cao Fei creates dazzling, immersive worlds in which documentary observation, fiction, and speculative imagination converge, drawing on the past and the present to speculate on the future. Occupying the museum's expansive lower-level gallery, Cao Fei's immersive environment invites visitors to enter its world and become part of it.
The exhibition is a joint presentation of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and the Hartwig Museum. Curated by Beatrix Ruf, Hartwig Museum, and Melanie Bühler, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.
Video still Cao Fei, DASH (2026). © Cao Fei, 2026, courtesy Sprüth Magers and Vitamin Creative Space