Explosions and gunpowder

Cai Guo-Qiang Reviving the Ancient Signal Towers:
 Project for Extraterrestrials No. 8, 1991, 200 x 680 cm Gunpowder and ink on hemp paper, backed on wood panel

Cai Guo-Qiang Primeval Fireball: The Project for Projects
1991 Seven gunpowder drawings
(gunpowder on paper, mounted on board as folding screens)

Cai Guo-Qiang artworks are amazing. Like Kiki Smith his artwork varies though out his long career which spans from the 80s as a student for stage designing at the Shanghai Drama Institute in Beijing. His drawings and visual performances are unique and they bring attention to his Chinese heritage. I’ve never seen physics and art collaborating to create beautiful explosions. He is very skilled with explosives and fireworks. In addition, his medium of gun powder and the scientific skill with his fuse techniques make his 2-D compositions appears very close to the ancient traditional Chinese ink painting. He is known for this visual performance of using explosive materials such as the footprints and the Olympic rings he created in the Beijing sky with fireworks for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games opening ceremony.

Guo-Qiang process of drawing with gunpowder involves science and luck. He first cuts out templates of part of his drawing. He adds small amounts of gunpowder around template which he removes to reveal an outline. After this step is done for the whole drawing, he and his assistants cover the gunpowder drawings and firmly weigh it down with heavy objects. Guo-Qiang ignites this and after the explosion everyone puts out the small fires and removes the cardboard to reveal the artwork.

Cai Guo-Qiang

1997 Dragon Skeleton/

Suture of the Wall
Gunpowder fuse, gunpowder on wall

Cai Guo-Qiang 1997 Dragon Skeleton/Suture of the Wall
Gunpowder fuse, gunpowder on wall

                In his large gunpowder drawings The Primeval Fireball: The Project for Projects, he uses gunpowder to create landscape drawings, the universe, and a communication to extraterrestrials. All the projects use white paper as the background to contrast greatly with the various black, gray and burnt brown and orange in the seven large compositions. All seven drawings are mounted on folded boards to appear like folded screen walls. These screens are placed together in the shape of a star with a gap in the middle. Another drawing involved Chinese history and communication through fire with again extraterrestrials. The drawing Reviving the Ancient Signal Towers: Project for Extraterrestrials No. 8 is also visual project in which he and the help of others performed. Their medium was abandoned semaphores and gunpowder. They placed this visual performance along what was once known as the Silk Road in ancient China. The drawing is the blue plan for this project made of gunpowder, ink with a white hemp paper split into several wooden panels. Chinese characters are placed along the wavy ink line (to make it appear like hills) with spotted fires that go into the distance. The perspective goes far with the illusion of smaller dots of fire in the corner of panel which gradually becomes larger in the opposite side of the composition. The project was a reflection of a period when the fastest communication was with fire to signal someone. The same method can also apply for extraterrestrials. Even in our era, light can still be the fastest communication for extraterrestrials in another world. Dragon Skeleton/Suture of the Wall display the burning process of the gunpowder with short fuses and the result of a large black dragon skeleton that takes up most of a white wall. The dragon has this nightmare appearance with a blurry unrealistic quality because of the gradient like appearance of the black carbon changing into gray around the long skeleton. Flying Dragon in the Heavens: Project for Extraterrestrials No. 29 was a project done outside. It was a long (100 m) silk kite appearing like a white dragon. The project involved flying the kite at a museum in Denmark then igniting it with gunpowder, fuses 1500 meter in length and lighting it at night. His aim once again was to communicate with aliens. 

Cai Guo-Qiang  Flying Dragon in the Heavens
1997 Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, Denmark Gunpowder: 7 kg , gunpowder fuses: 1, 500 m, silk dragon kite and rope kite length 100 m

   Guo-Qiang does many firework displays for various centers and museums. Hopefully, he can do a grandeur display better than his finest fireworks performance from the Beijing Olympics. He does other installation, as well, that I will talk about in my next blog.