Stills from “Sky Ladder: The Art of Cai Guo-Qiang”
This amazing work by the Chinese artist utilizes fireworks to commentate on smog and depleting environmental health of China. In “Elegy,” vibrant colors represent nature that once was, while dark blacks and blues flood the skies like bruises humanity has beaten into the ozone. Ending with a slime green explosion, the toxic-looking smoke lingers in the air, hyperbolizing current conditions to show what could be. Watch the event in its entirety here.
After controversial, publicized displays that were government sanctioned such as the Olympics, Guo-Qiang's took the time to focus on what he values in art, taking on his most personal project. A dream over two decades in the making, “Sky Ladder” documents the pitfalls and execution of a 1,650-foot-tall firecracker ladder to the sky. After failures at several public sites over the years, the pinnacle of Guo-Qiang’s career was carried out in secret a fishing village before dawn. It was “to connect the Earth to the universe,” the artist said in 1994 before his first unsuccessful attempt.
Dedicated to his grandmother, the climbing work is a whimsical site, and the journey just as incredible. Chronicling the artist’s works, the doc is full of fantastic firework displays and museum installations just as gigantic.
