This is undoubtedly the most sincere art exhibition of the year, both in terms of the scale of the works and their visual appeal. The advantage of installation art is that when you are immersed in it, the impact is strikingly evident.
Cai Guo-Qiang, born in Quanzhou in 1957, studied at the Department of Stage Design at the Shanghai Theatre Academy. From 1986 to 1995, he lived in Japan, where he developed a strong interest in creating paintings with gunpowder, gradually expanding the scale of his explosion-based artworks. He has since lived in the United States and served as the Director of Fireworks for the 2001 Shanghai APEC Conference, a core creative team member and Director of Visual Effects for the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, Director of Fireworks for the 60th Anniversary of the People’s Republic of China National Day in 2009, and Director of Fireworks for the Centennial Celebration of the Republic of China New Year’s Eve in 2011.
For Chinese audiences, his most memorable work is probably the giant footprints that traversed Beijing during the Olympic Opening Ceremony.
First is the work “The Ninth Wave,” featuring a wooden boat from Cai Guo-Qiang’s hometown and 99 realistic animal replicas.
“Silent Ink”: A pond was excavated in the nearly 1,000-square-meter exhibition hall, filled with ink, and a black waterfall cascades down, splashing onto the pool’s surface.
“Head On”: 99 wolves leap up, crash into a transparent glass wall, and then tumble to the ground before turning back.
Head On (photo from a previous exhibition)
“Air of Paradise”: Inside a large smokestack, three realistic dolls swing on swings.
The rest are essentially works created through gunpowder explosions. Next to each piece, there is a video showing the entire creation process.
The organizers have also provided online videos; interested viewers can check them out, but they are hosted on Vimeo and require bypassing internet restrictions to access.
No Our Bund:http://vimeo.com/101887458
Brazilian Flowers and Birds:http://vimeo.com/67808613
Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter:http://vimeo.com/101533697
Daytime fireworks over the Huangpu River on the opening day, August 8, 2014:
Daytime Fireworks (official photo)
Official video:http://vimeo.com/103547331
Viewers within mainland China can also watch third-party domestic videos:http://v.qq.com/page/o/x/k/o0134g3yfxk.html
There is also a room with multiple projectors screening footage of explosion and fireworks projects carried out around the world over the past 25 years.
2008 Olympic Games Opening and Closing Ceremonies:http://vimeo.com/68304792
For more videos, follow the official Vimeo page:http://vimeo.com/user5149142/videos
Finally, here are a few photos taken from the terrace of the Power Station of Art:
Photos in this post were taken with a SONY NEX-5R + 16-50 f3.5-5.6, post-processed in Lightroom.
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