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Cai Dongdong was born in 1978 in Tianshui, Gansu Province. He joined the People’s Liberation Army at a young age, where he worked as a portrait photographer for enlisted soldiers. This early role served as his formal training in photography and ultimately set him on a professional path. After his military service, Cai returned to Beijing and opened his own studio, marking the beginning of his independent artistic career.

Since then, Cai’s artistic practice has evolved to blend archival imagery, found photography, and installation. His works often present fragmented realities, using readymade materials—a nod to Marcel Duchamp’s Dadaist influence. In particular, he physically intervenes in photographs with objects like mirrors and arrows, creating what he refers to as “photo-sculptures.”

Over the years, his work has been featured in numerous group exhibitions at museums around the world, including:

• Working on History: Contemporary Chinese Photography and the Cultural Revolution, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Germany (2017)

• Évidences du réel: La photographie face à ses facunes, Musée d’art de Pully, Switzerland (2017)

• Bizarreland: Exhibition of Chinese and Contemporary Photography, Nantong City Center Art Museum, China (2017)

• The Exhibition Go: Annual Contemporary Art in China, Beijing Minsheng Art Museum (2016)

• Silk Road International, Art Museum of Nanjing University of the Arts, China (2016)

• New Capital: Huang Yu Collection Exhibition, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chengdu, China (2016)

• Guns and Roses, Kunstraum, Potsdam c/o Waschhaus, Germany (2016)

• Links – Locality and Nomadism, The Galaxy Museum of Contemporary Art, Chongqing, China (2015–2016)

• Beyond the Earth – The First Xi’an Contemporary Photography Exhibition, Xi’an Art Museum, Shaanxi Province, China (2015)

• Chinese Photography: Twentieth Century and Beyond, Three Shadows Photography Art Centre, Beijing (2015)

• Unfamiliar Asia: The Second Beijing Photo Biennial, CAFA Art Museum, Beijing (2015)

• China 8: Contemporary Art from China on the Rhine and Ruhr, Folkwang Museum, Essen, Germany (2015)

• 2nd Three Shadows Experimental Image Open Exhibition, Three Shadows Photography Art Centre, Beijing (2015)

• Pull Left – Not Always Right, Urban Arts Space, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, and Hillstrom Museum of Art, Saint Peter, MN (2014)

• Unboundedness, China Cultural Center, Berlin, Germany (2013–2014)

Today, Cai Dongdong lives and works in Beijing, continuing to explore the boundaries of photography and sculpture through his distinctive visual language.