cai guo qiang

there are few living artists i'm supremely amazed by, but cai guo qiang is definitely one of them. i first saw his work on a documentary about the rise of chinese artists on PBS. he was doing super interesting work with gunpowder. first off, anyone who blows stuff up and calls it art is already a hero in my book. secondly, the stuff is really beautiful. it often bears a likeness to old chinese landscapes. the way he would do it is take gunpowder and fireworks and pour it out on large pieces of paper, wood, stone and then lay a heavy piece of stone on top of it and then light it up, the pressure of the ignited gunpowder would create patterns on the surface. keep in mind that i saw this documentary in college. the fact that i even remember that is small miracle.

amazing use of gunpowder and fireworks

when still at college, a new piece he created was on display at Mass MOCA in north adams. it was a stop motion exhibit of a car driving and flipping over and crashing into a wall. it was similar to the animal exhibits below. but with cars, the gravity of the pieces had to be soaked in. installing the piece must have required a crane or at least a big fork lift. i wish i had seen the wolf exhibit below - i think it would have been stunning. his pieces typically take up a great deal of space (the car exhibit took up at least 250 feet of space).

an incredibly emotional piece with tiger shot with dozens of arrows
physical recreation of stop motion style photography

probably my favorite series are the variations of tigers shot with arrows. i've also seen this piece in person, but i can't remember where. it is definitely an emotional experience seeing tigers shot with dozens of arrows in contorted. it's pretty intense in person since you can walk right up to them. and really seeing anything pierced dozens of times is a little scary.

an incredibly emotional piece with tiger shot with dozens of arrows

another gunpowder piece

[via cai guo qiang]