Throughout his revolutionary career, Cai Guo-Qiang has stood at the forefront of internationally recognized Chinese artists, continually setting the stage for the acknowledgement and appreciation of contemporary Chinese art both abroad and within his home country. Named four separate times among ArtReview’s annual Power 100, Cai’s accolades include being the first artist from China to win the prestigious Golden Lion award at the Venice Biennale in 1999, the first contemporary artist granted a solo exhibition at a state-operated Chinese museum with his showing at the Shanghai Art Museum in 2002, and the first Chinese artist to hold a solo exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in New York with his exhibition “I Want to Believe” in 2008. Additionally, this same year he was appointed director of visual and special effects for the opening and closing ceremonies of the Beijing Olympic Games. Adding to this already extraordinary catalogue of achievements, this autumn Cai became the first Chinese artist awarded the Praemium Imperiale, one of the most prestigious awards in the fine arts field, and likened to the Nobel Prize of arts. Cai’s artistic style has yielded individual and unique works that transcend borders, both geographic and cultural, to achieve a universal appeal.

As with many contemporary Chinese artists, Cai’s work seeks to merge and balance an amalgam of often conflicting cultures and ideologies. While believing that art and artists should reflect and comment on the society and cultural events which surround them, Cai separates himself from overt social activism, preferring instead to focus on the aesthetic rather than the political aspects of his art. Cai blends this aestheticism with inspiration from the mysticism of a Taoist upbringing. First discovered by Taoist alchemists seeking mystical means for preserving longevity, Cai’s preferred medium of gunpowder has had a long traditional association with apotropaic symbolism throughout much of Chinese history and culture. Enamored with the unpredictability and traditional connotations of the medium, Cai has used gunpowder in numerous ways throughout his artistic career. “I see gunpowder as a way of transforming natural energies,” the artist explains, “There’s an impact from the sound; there’s the physicality of the heat. I believe in its mystical properties.”

In his utilization of gunpowder, Cai feels a close affinity with the Taoist alchemists, as he transforms the violence of his controlled explosions into beauty and serenity of expression. Cai’s use of such a temperamental and volatile explosive on delicate and flammable rice paper demonstrates his admiration of the unpredictable nature of his medium.

While Cai’s gunpowder drawings originally began as abstract experiments, once he initiated his “explosion events” in 1989, he began using his gunpowder on paper creations as a means of recording the experience of these artistic exhibitions, granting permanence to an otherwise transitory event. Such is the case with Golden Missile; commissioned by the Taipei Fine Arts Museum for the 1998 Taipei Biennale, the Golden Missile explosion event lasted only 53 seconds. Cai arranged 200 miniature missiles to be released in unison, each with its own unique course of vertical flight. The result of the performance was an intense multitude of elegantly slim rockets, each propelled into the air on its own winding path of ephemeral smoke. With each rocket ejecting its own protective white parachute, the missiles floated softly back to earth as the curving, spiraling arcs of their fleeting trajectories slowly dissipated. Cai captures this initial explosive excitement followed by serene descent in the six-panel gunpowder drawing created to commemorate the event. Intended to be read from left to right, Golden Missile first captures the moment of ignition as the dense array of missiles departs in a closely packed drove, ascending vertically along the first panel before diverging into their own unique routes along the greater expanse of white paper spread across the central panels. In the final stages, the oblong charring representative of the rockets disperses into softly scorched puffs expressive of the gentle explosions with which the missiles released their individual parachutes, and quietly begin their gradual decent. In Golden Missile, Cai has expertly juxtaposed the heavy volatile excitement of the explosive nature of his medium with the delicacy and grace reminiscent of traditional Chinese literati painters.

Cai Guo-Qiang’s artistic aesthetic continues to push limits and surpass boundaries as the artist persistently refines his distinctive and singular use of his inimitable medium. The volatility of his artwork motivates Cai to explore new depths and techniques when working with his signature gunpowder, realizing fresh discoveries in creating innovative art. “Why is it important to make these violent explosions beautiful?” Cai asks, “Because the artist, like an alchemist, has the ability to transform certain energies, using poison against poison, using dirt and getting gold.”