Cai Guo-Qiang 2: Painting and Sculpture

Cai Guo-Qiang was born in China, moved to Japan in 1986 to pursue his art education, and now lives mostly in the US. He is most famous for his fireworks displays which I wrote about a few days ago. Today I take up his painting and sculpture, which is also fascinating. His most famous paintings, like the one above, are made using actual gunpowder explosions. He carefully sets up the power and charge in such a way that the blast projects powder onto the canvas, and, boom. These are big canvases, mostly taller than the people who come to look at them, and Cai likes to fill whole galleries with hundreds of feet of them.

More explosions.

 

Other abstract paintings.

And two depictions of scenes.

Here is a fascinating work, an old fishing boat that Cai installed in a gallery room that he rigged to be always full of fog.

And a work that has gotten a lot of attention lately, titled The Art of War. Like it not, you have to admit that that is definitely something.