For her first solo exhibition in Switzerland, and the most expansive European retrospective of her career to date, Cao Fei takes over the Kunstmuseum Basel with Testimonies to the Near Future, spanning three decades of work. The exhibition transforms the museum’s four floors into an interconnected environment of video, installation, sculpture, photography and digital media with over twenty hours of footage. Widely recognized for her explorations of technology, virtual worlds and contemporary life, the Chinese artist has also crossed into the fashion sphere, most notably through her collaboration with Prada on the 2019 project “Code Human”, bringing her distinctive vision of identity and digital culture to a global audience, which is how I personally first came across her work. However, gamers might know her for her avatar China Tracy, created within the virtual platform Second Life, which became one of the defining figures of early internet art. Through projects such as RMB City, a fictional metropolis built entirely in a digital environment, she examined how virtual spaces could reflect the ambitions, contradictions and desires of contemporary society.

Cao Fei at Kunstmuseum Basel Gegenwart, May 2026 – Photo Credit: Samuel Bramley

Born in Guangzhou in 1978, the same year China’s reform and opening-up policies began reshaping the country, Cao has spent more than two decades examining the social and technological transformations that have defined modern China. Her work is rooted in the rapid development of the Pearl River Delta, yet it consistently moves beyond documentation. Factories become stages for personal aspiration, urban landscapes drift into science-fiction territory and digital avatars emerge as alternative selves. Developed in collaboration with Beijing-based Small Production, this exhibition reflects her interest in how digital technologies reshape our understanding of place, community and human experience. Long before discussions surrounding virtual identities, online worlds and artificial intelligence entered mainstream culture, Cao was exploring these ideas through art.

Whose Utopia currently showing on Level 02 The Factories

The Basel exhibition is conceived as a large-scale spatial experience taking form as a city which includes a street, factory, playground and office. Objects, architectural interventions and cinematic environments overlap, encouraging visitors to move through her work in a non-chronological manner. The exhibition is accompanied by a specially commissioned artist’s book featuring a new text by award-winning Chinese science-fiction writer Regina Kanyu Wang and illustrations by artist YuFei. Centered on the character of China Tracy, Wang’s fictional narrative moves through the worlds presented in the exhibition, while YuFei’s drawings draw on the visual language of Chinese science-fiction comics from the post-Mao era. I personally loved The Shelter setting on the last floor, as it allowed me to dive into archival footage and especially those before the metaverse and gaming eras as seeing them really allowed me to experience what was clearly once the future of the up-and-coming artist.

Rabid Dog currently showing on Level 04 The Shelter

At a moment when technological change continues to accelerate, Testimonies to the Near Future highlights the questions that have long shaped Cao Fei’s practice: how individuals navigate transformation, how identities are constructed across physical and digital realms, and how imagination can offer new ways of understanding the present.

Testimonies to the Near Future at Kunstmuseum Basel | Gegenwart until 11 October 2026

Cosplayers – A Mirage, Cao Fei 2004 Courtesy of the artist, Creative Vitamin Space, and Sprüth Magers

Oz 01 (from Oz series), Cao Fei 2023 Courtesy of the artist, Creative Vitamin Space, and Sprüth Magers

Asia One 01, Cao Fei 2018 Inkjet print on paper, aluminum plastic plate mounting, Image: 90 x 135 cm Commissioned by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, for The Robert HN Ho Family Foundation Chinese Art Initiative. Courtesy of the artist, Vitamin Creative Space and Sprütth Magers

Hip Hop: Shanghai, Cao Fei 2025 Produced by nowness. Courtesy of the artist, Vitamin Creative Space, and Sprüth Magers

Isle of Instability, Cao Fei 2020 Courtesy of the artist, Creative Vitamin Space, and Sprüth Magers. Commissioned by Audemars Piguet Contemporary

RMB City: a Second Life city planning, Cao Fei 2007 Courtesy of the artist, Creative Vitamin Space, and Sprüth Magers

Installation view Kunstmuseum Basel Cao Fei: Testimonies to the Near Future courtesy of the artist, Vitamin Creative Space, and Sprüth Magers. Photo Credit: Samuel Bramley