Cao Yu (artist)

In 2018, she was the winner of Best Young Artist of the Year·The 12th AAC Award，and named China Art Power100(2018), shortlisted for the Chinese Contemporary Art Award(CCAA)and the French Opline Prize(2019), and finalist for the Yishu 8· Chinese Young Artist Award(2017). She was also selected into Generation .T Asia's Leaders of tomorrow in October 2020, .

She is best known for her work Fountain [1][2] a silent video loop in which the artist repeatedly squeezes milk from her breasts. The piece, presented at her graduation exhibition at Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, was almost banned from the show for obscenity.[3]

Her work have been exhibited globally at museums and institutions including MAK Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna, Austria; Palais-de-Tokyo, Paris, France; Konfuzius-Institut Nürnberg-Erlangen, Nuremberg, Germany; Artspace, Sydney, Australia; Minsheng Art Museum,China; Martina Tauber Fine Art, Munich, Germany; Camera Club New York, US; Diskurs，Berlin，Germany; Today Art Museum, Beijing, China; etc. Her work are also in the collections of museums and institutions that include M+ Collection, Hong Kong; Erlenmeyer Stiftung,Basel,Switzerland; Sishang Art Museum, Beijing ; Central Academy of Fine Arts Art Museum, Beijing, etc.

• Best Young Artist of the Year·The 12th AAC Award
• Nomination, Yishu·8 Chinese Young Artist Award
• Selected into Generation.T Asia's Leaders of tomorrow 2020
• Shortlisted for the Chinese Contemporary Art Award(CCAA)
• Nomination, Opline Prize, France
• Named 2018 China Art Power100
• Third prize, CAFA Graduates Outstanding Exhibition 2011
• Nomination, Zeng Zhushao Sculpture Fellowship

Solo Exhibitions

• 2019 Femme Fatale, Galerie Urs Meile, Lucerne,
• 2017 I Have an Hourglass Waist, Galerie Urs Meile, Beijing,

Selected Group Exhibitions 2020

• Shifting, Pop-up Art Parcours, Galerie Urs Meile, Ardez, Switzerland
• Being of Evils，Hive Center For Contemporary Art，Beijing, China

2019

• Chinese Whispers 中 国 私 语 - Recent Art from the Sigg Collection, MAK Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna, Austria
• China Bodies of Work, Baxter Street at the Camera Club New York, New York, US
• Goodbye Plastic, Longtang, Zurich, Switzerland
• Now Is The Time, 2019 Wuzhen Contemporary Art Exhibition, North Silk Factory, Wuzhen

2018

• SANKT MARTIN, Martina Tauber Fine Art, Munich, Germany
• Pace Over Window，Pyeongchang Olympics Media engineering，Pyeongchang, Korea
• The Exhibition of Annual of Contemporary Art of China, Beijing Minsheng Art Museum,China
• Her Kind, Zhuzhong Art Museum, Beijing, China
• Encounter Asia—Multi-vision of Youth, Museum of Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, Tank Loft, Chong- qing Contemporary Art Center, Chongqing, China
• XIE-SHENG，Bonacon Gallery,Guangzhou,China 0:00, Bank / Mabsociety, Shanghai,China

2017

• Extended Ground, GalerieUrsMeile, Lucerne, Switzerland
• BANANA BANANA2, DISKURS Berlin, Berlin, Germany
• THE PUBLIC BODY .02, Artspace, Sydney, Australia Kabinett, Art Basel Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
• Prix Yishu 8 Chine Exposition des Finalistes, Yishu 8, Beijing, China
• Recent acquisitions – recent developments, Sishang Art Museum, Beijing, China

2016

• The 3rd Today's Documents-BRIC-á-brac: The Jumble of Growth, Today Art Museum, Beijing, China
• Neo - Eden: The Artworks by Young Chinese, Japanese and Korean Artists, Jinji Lake Art Museum, Suzhou, China
• Technology - Alchemy and Body Modification, Ying Art Center, Shanghai, China
• Thinking in Torus: Young Chinese Artists Across Dimensions, Luohu Art Museum, Shenzhen, China
• 2016 - Fresh Vision, OCT Art and Design Gallery, Shenzhen, China
• WHY the PERFORMANCE?, McaM, Shanghai, China
• BANANA BANANA, JNBY Concept Store, Beijing, China
• China Streaming·VIA Art Channel, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France

Public Collection

• Erlenmeyer Stiftung，Basel，Switzerland M+ Collection, Hong Kong,China
• Sishang Art Museum, Beijing, China
• Central Academy of Fine Arts Art Museum, Beijing, China
• ZZ Art Museum, Beijing, China

Personal Publications

• 我有水蛇腰 I Have an Hourglass Waist
• 曹雨│CaoYu
• Publisher/Editor:Galerie Urs Meile Text:Rachel Rits-Volloch,TanYing Translation:DuKeke(C),Jeff Crosby(E) Photography:YangChaoPhotographyStudio
• Design:ZhangQian ISBN 978-3-906134-38-3

Displayed on a vertical HD television, Fountain shows a continuous moving-image loop of the artist "forcefully squeezing two mountain-like breasts until pure white milk spurts out." [4] The video, whose soundtrack is silent, is cropped to show only the artist's breasts and hands in the action of expelling fluid in an upward fountain-like spray. The sequence lasts for over ten minutes.

Cao Yu made the piece soon after giving birth, when the physical transformation of motherhood caused her to lactate incessantly. According to the artist, "Fountain appears beautiful and explosive, but to me it's about pain. The frequent pain from mastitis forced me to release the milk trapped in my body. At that moment I felt how amazing my body is, and I wanted to create a fountain by using my body as a vessel."[5] She describes the work's powerful, explosive action as a display of "masculinity through a female body" that achieves "a wonderful state of androgyny."[5]

Although the work's name echoes Marcel Duchamp's Fountain (1917), Cao Yu's Fountain is a direct tribute to Bruce Nauman's Self-Portrait as a Fountain (1966),[5][6] a colour photograph in which the American artist spurts water from his mouth in imitation of nude statues found in decorative fountains. Nauman made a number of text-based works that used the statement “The true artist is an amazing luminous fountain.”[7]

The piece also references Ingres' The Source (1856),[5] an oil painting that depicts a female nude holding a pitcher of flowing water, in reference to the Muses and inspiration in classical literature.

• 曹雨. China Internet Information Center (art.china.cn). 2016-12-08.