#caiguoqiang

[questarchives]

Vintage Issey Miyake

Cai Guo Qiang Gunpowder Serpentine Dress

Guest Artist Series 4

1998

[niioka]

＠NACT.

[moma-prints]

Nontransparent Monument, Cai Guo-Qiang, 2006, MoMA: Drawings and Prints

Stephen F. Dull Fund Size: (see child records) Medium: Series of five ink rubbings

http://www.moma.org/collection/works/111269

[ashmoleanmuseum]

Last Chance to See: Cai Guo-Qiang

Our FREE exhibition of gunpowder art by Cai Guo-Qiang end this Sunday! Don't miss your last chance to see it. ⁠ ⁠ Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang (b. 1957) is best-known for his gunpowder explosion events staged in public spaces worldwide and, in particular, for his firework display for the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. ⁠ ⁠ This exhibition focuses on the artist’s smaller-scale works, exploring the presence of Chinese culture in his art through the mediums of painting, drawing, and gunpowder on canvas, paper and silk. Learn about the significance behind the materials Cai Guo-Qiang chooses to work with, as well as the ways he adapts them to explore his own central themes of creation, destruction and chance.⁠ ⁠ Closes Sunday 13 September. Please note that booking is essential for general admission to the Museum under our new safety measures. ⁠

[artpedia]

Cai Guo-Quang, Heritage. 2013 #art #contemporaryart #installationart #caiguoqiang #sculpture https://www.instagram.com/p/B4gLq0Oj9fl/?igshid=1lax1iutssmud

[marcolikestowatch]

Cai Guo Qiang #marcolikestowatch #caiguoqiang (at New York, New York) https://www.instagram.com/p/BwoTeaZFci-/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=x3i869mvdl23

[stacyosterman]

Cai Guo-Qiang

“I hope this movie will encourage a lot more young artists,” said Cai. “It’s not easy to be an artist, but it’s very meaningful.”

I didn’t know that I grew up seeing Cai Guo Qiang work. I cut myself some slack as I was more engrossed in the music scene than contemporary art. Even now when I think of the Ford Taurus’ hanging from the ceiling of the Seattle Art Museum I find them dated. Part of the reason is the choice of vehicle and the bursts of neon light radiating out of the suspended cars. Another reason is the installation of the work at the SAM. The former, amazingly missed, art critic for The Stranger Jen Graves wrote a piece on the work when it was finally removed: 

At that museum, you could walk into that single gallery and see the entire arc of the white cars as they tumbled through space with their "exploding" colored lights flashing. There was nothing else in the gallery. The cinematic, frame-by-frame flight—beginning and ending with parked cars on the ground—potentially symbolized a car bomb, or a crash.

In 2007, the artwork came to Seattle Art Museum and became part of its permanent collection. It was a gift from retired banking executive Robert M. Arnold in honor of SAM's 75th anniversary in 2008 and the expansion of the museum, which opened with the cars front and center.

The flashing lights, visible from the street, became synonymous with SAM.

But confusion became synonymous with the flashing lights.

At SAM, the cars flying through the air were interrupted by the architecture, dramatically. You couldn't see the entire arc because the cars flew through a balcony and down onto another floor. Over the years, I gave museum tours for various groups, and every single time, the people would say to me, "What is that?"

Inopportune: Stage One has been one of the worst-installed art juggernauts that I've ever seen.

It was rendered meaningless. But it was also the loudest thing about entering SAM. I found it continually depressing.

I wasn’t thinking about any of this when I finally watched the film that had been sitting in my Netflix cue for over a year, Sky Ladder. The annoying preview that the streaming giant instituted a couple months ago finally paid off and I cried enough happy tears at the short film that I finally decided to hit play. The movie was as encouraging to me as I suspect Cai would hope. Of of the first quotes that resonated with me was from one of Guo Qiang’s many helpers “He doesn’t see failure or success in art”. To create without thinking of that creation succeeding feels so overwhelming. It feels as overwhelming as creating something only to destroy it. I guess when your work consists of explosions it’s an easy concept to grasp. 

There were other things that made me grab my notebook and attempt to write out yet another morning schedule to get me motivated and creating. He was greatly inspired by his time in Japan, their idea of minimalism. His father was a calligrapher and during The Cultural Revolution in China was forced to burn any art books he created, which Guo Qiang helped his father do in the early morning hours. His ease at drawing characters, villages on scraps of paper, made me want to wake up every morning and spend an hour sketching. 

What is stopping me from doing even a small task like writing every morning, drawing in my book, reading, coloring, practicing my craft? I see the work it takes to create these large scale projects and I know I’m willing to do it but I am scared to be the one that oversee’s the process, finding more comfort in those who help. It’s obviously fear. Fear of creating something people won’t like. Fear of having a team rely on me only to let them down. Fear of asking for what I want. Fear of actually succeeding in creating a sustaining career that isn’t built on anyone but me. 

“he doesn’t see failure or success”

As the movie showed the pieces Guo Qiang has created over the years I was surprised to see the familiar lobby of the SAM with the two visible cars of Inopportune: Stage One. This was an artist I had seen repeatedly and yet was never moved by. The piece itself was removed to great fanfare by the local art community. This work was created, purchased by a Bank Executive, and put into a space that didn’t allow for it’s original intent to be shown. Inopportune was basically a temporary work. And he just keeps creating. And now I’m writing about him as an inspiration. 

Sky Ladder, the work itself, is another ephemeral piece. Attempted many times, thwarted by weather and permits, years and hundreds of thousands of dollars spent, Cai finally saw it come to life on the banks of a small fishing village at 4:30 in the morning to small viewing party of his family and friends. There was moment, once the sun rose and the fanfare was over, that Cai walked over to his wife who was wracked with tears. Happy tears. She looked at the sky, the skeletal remains of the ladder still hanging from the heavens, and cried even harder. It was over: and it was over, finally. The life of a project, from beginning to end. Treasure the moments, grieve for the loss. Life is temporary, art should be too. 

Videos: 

Cai Guo-Qiang on Art 21

Elegy: Explosion Event

Cai Guo-Qiang - Drawing with Gunpowder - The Artist's Studio

[niioka]

＠NACT.