Tragic Beauty
A Conversation with Cai Guo-Qiang
Cai Guo-Qiang already made a big bang prior to his exhibition Head On when
he blew up an entire house in front of hundreds of onlookers. Harald
Fricke and Oliver Koerner von Gustorf spoke with the Chinese
artist about his relationship to German history, tragic beauty, and the
dangers of a global event culture.
Cai
Guo-Qiang, 2006
Workers erected the small
house a few days ago – a bit of prefab, a bit of shrubbery, white with a
gable roof on top – typically German, that is. Nothing special, actually,
except that this house is situated in the middle of Berlin on an unused
lot close to the ruins of Anhalter
Bahnhof. But no one will be moving in here.
When the new
construction blows up in a deafening explosion on the evening of July 11,
one thinks for a moment of a gas explosion or a bomb. But then there are
these bright, colorful fireworks rising up into the evening sky kindled by
a reddish glow, up from the burning house and accompanied by a fine ash
rain. Illusion II is the title of the explosive performance by the
Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang, which will be on show in the form of a video
at the Deutsche
Guggenheim in Berlin starting on August 26.
Illusion
II: Explosion Project, July 11, 2006
Stresemannstrasse/
Möckernstrasse, Berlin, Germany
Foto:
Maria Morais
Cai’s first one-person museum
exhibition in Germany is explosive in many respects; he "paints" with
gunpowder, using traces from glowing embers and soot to form wolf and lion
shapes in his poetic pictures. And then there’s the realistic pack of
wolves that keeps the Deutsche Guggenheim in check: 99 wolves charge into
the exhibition hall, running, loping, and finally leaping straight at the
wall at the head of the room.
Illusion
II: Explosion Project, 9:30pm, July 11, 2006
Stresemannstrasse/
Möckernstrasse, Berlin, Germany
Foto:
Hiro Ihara, Courtesy of Cai Studio
The
artist, born 1957 in Quanzhou City, Province Fujian, loves danger and
challenge: as a young man, he worked as an actor in Chinese martial arts
films. Since that time, however, Cai can look back over an impressive
career. He left his native country in 1986 to work first in Japan and then
in New York. Since the early nineties, he has realized a large number of
projects all around the globe, combining traditional Chinese art and
culture with post-conceptual thought. Whether he paints on walls, paper,
or in the sky with his explosive art, whether he creates bridges, dragons,
or black holes from light and color – he always undermines predetermined
perceptions and confronts the viewer with the paradoxes inhabiting an
increasingly globalized world.
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Illusion II: Explosion Project, 9:30pm,
July 11, 2006
Stresemannstrasse/
Möckernstrasse, Berlin, Germany
Foto:
Hiro Ihara, Courtesy of Cai Studio
Some of
Cai’s spectacular projects have been: Project
to Extend the Great Wall of China by 10,000 Meters, Jiayuguan
City, 1993; Transient
Rainbow, Museum of Modern Art,
New York, 2002; Ye
Gong Hao Long: Explosion Project for Tate Modern, Tate
Modern, London, 2003; Light
Cycle: Explosion Project for Central Park, Creative
Time, New York, 2003. In 2005, Cai Guo-Qiang curated the Chinese
Pavilion at the Venice
Biennale. A large retrospective of the artist’s work is scheduled for
2008 at the Guggenheim
Museum in New York and will be supported by Deutsche
Bank.
Exploding
House: Project for Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin,
Gunpowder
on paper, 2006, Collection of the artist
©Cai
Guo-Qiang
Harald Fricke
and Oliver Koerner von Gustorf: Why are your works so often about
extraterrestrials, spirits, and fairy tale creatures?
Cai
Guo-Qiang: Making the invisible visible, whether in the form of a
dragon or a tiger, lends thought a physical presence. But seriously, it’s
about animals and spirits that represent the human world, without
attaining to a concrete human form. My grandmother and my mother both
observed the traditions of their ancestors. They believed in the power of
invisible things – this was a part of everyday life, and now it comes to
expression in my art.
Transient
Rainbow, Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA, 2002
©Cai
Guo-Qiang
Your works for Head
On combine this tradition with various different motifs that arose
during your investigation of Berlin: a typical little German house that
bursts into flames after an apparent bombing in Illusion II, or the
99 wolves that collectively jump against a wall in the exhibition hall.
How did these images arise?
That’s just a coincidence. It was a
fantasy of mine that I had while I was traveling around here in Germany.
While I was building the house for Illusion II, for instance, which
exploded using fireworks, a townhouse burnt and collapsed in New York at
the same time. Of course the works have something to do with Berlin, too,
but not in a specific sense, because it’s about things that apply to the
entire human race: the beauty of destruction, heroism, human blindness.
All these different elements occur on a smaller scale, but they are
universal nonetheless.
Proposal
drawing for Vortex, 2005
©Cai
Guo-Qiang
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