Cai Guo-Qiang
The fourth artist I am researching is Cai Guo-Qiang from China. Cai Guo-Qiang's practice draws on a wide variety of symbols, narratives, traditions and materials such as fengshui, Chinese medicine, shanshui paintings, science, flora and fauna, portraiture, and fireworks.
The thing that makes Cai Quo-Giang stand out from other artists is definitely his 'Project for Extraterrestrials' which is a series of outdoor explosions that are meaning to show extraterrestrials that even though they may have seen humans do some ugly things such as war, but humans are also capable of using the implements that they used to create conflict to also dazzle and amaze. After his first 'Project for Extraterrestrials' show Cai said, “The explosions of gunpowder that have taken place on Earth have been mostly for war and environmental destruction under the name of development. How do extraterrestrials receive these human acts…humans now send out a different image of humans to the universe, which is not related to war or killing.”
I think that Cai Guo-Qiang is a very original artist who has been able to find a technique that allows him to create brilliant pieces of work whilst also having an important link to his heritage and home country. The scale of his work is also something to be proud of and I will probably return to his work and research into it further out of curiosity.
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