Cai Guo-Qiang: I Want to Believe

Exhibition Review by Beth S. Gersh-Nesic

I am in deep mourning after the closing of the Cai Quo-Qiang exhibition entitled I Want to Believe. At first there was denial, then anger, but now there is acceptance and even a bit of transcendence: I want to believe ...

I want to believe that this first solo exhibition of an Asian artist at the Guggenheim Museum will not be the last.

I want to believe that Cai Guo-Qiang has tapped into an urgent twenty-first century conundrum: the pleasure and pain of violent explosions--celebratory fire-works versus deadly car bombs.

I want to believe that Cai's importance comes from connecting dichotomies that are as ancient as humankind and as contemporary as the global economy: East/West; Domestic/Foreign; Capitalism/Communism; Sacred/Secular; Ephemera/Eternality.

I want to believe that Cai's attention to cross-cultural interaction reveals the truth of our era: that dichotomies can enhance our awareness of differences, but that differences in themselves may be only constructs/inventions of the mind.

I want to believe that Cai's harnessing of Mao Zedang's maxim, "Destroy nothing, create nothing" overlaps with Picasso's dictum, "My painting is a sum of destructions." (The life-cycle of birth-death-rebirth is universal; the visualization of its meaning is cultural.)

I want to believe that the aesthetic reality of a work of art can be determined by the viewer--regardless of the artist's intention.

Therefore, I want to believe that Cai Guo-Qiang's famous "explosion event" gunpowder performances and the works on paper created from some of these explosions can be considered, simultaneously, a means to the art and the art work itself. This belief challenges the Guggenheim Guide statement: "Cai uses explosives to manifest the pure force of energy, not as a means to art but as an art form itself."


Cai Guo-Qiang (Chinese, b. 1957)
Inopportune: Stage One, 2004
Nine cars and sequenced multichannel light tubes
Dimensions variable
Gift of Robert M. Arnold, in honor of the
75th Anniversary of the Seattle Art Museum, 2006
Seattle Art Museum
Exhibition copy installed at
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 2008
© Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation New York
Photo by David Heald


I want to believe that Cai's Inopportune: Stage One (2004), a gigantic installation that fills this spiral museum's core, ceiling to floor, with nine white compact Chevrolets, simulating "the trajectory of a car-bomb explosion tumbling upwards through the atrium's void," can also be experienced as the frightening and exhilarating sensation of cars raining down on your head. The blinking lights extending out in long tubes from each vehicle add to this dazzling spectacle of terrifying references, of potential risk, of the possibility of technical failure that might unleash a massive cascade of crashing fender-benders and stir up public pandemonium. (New Yorkers are especially sensitive to gigantic suspending things, like cranes, crashing down--this is no joke. Another disaster occurred within walking distance of the Guggenheim while I was writing this review.)

I want to believe that the nine life-sized tigers in Inopportune: Stage Two (2004) magically come to life after visiting hours at the Guggenheim.

I want to believe that these startlingly life-like replicas pierced with hundreds of arrows over every inch of their painted sheep-hide pelts--including the mouth and nose--magically shed the encumbrance of the long bamboo shafts and feathers to become real, magnificent animals that loll and gambol much in the same manner as the 99 tigers painted on Cai's father's ink-scroll, which is partially on view within the Inopportune: Stage Two installation.


Cai Guo-Qiang (Chinese, b. 1957)
An Arbitrary History: River, 2001
Installation incorporating resin and bamboo riverbed,
water, yak skin and wooden boats; and works by
the artist presented as different components
Dimensions variable
Collection of the artist (riverbed and boats),
Various private and public collections (other components)
Installation view at the Musée d'Art Contemporain de Lyon, 2001
© Blaise Adilon


I want to believe that these magically transformed tigers often visit the next installation An Arbitrary History: River (2001), a serpentine river-bed, filled with water, made of fiberglass and bamboo.

I want to believe that the tigers jump and snap at the suspended cage of live canaries, the suspended bag of live snakes, the suspended "acupuncture chart" and the suspended little wooden bodhisattvas and Jesus shot through with scores of white arrows, St. Sebastian style.

I want to believe that these magical tigers take turns floating down Cai's man-made river in the little yak-skin boat which can accommodate only one person at a time.

I want to believe that each tiger remains completely oblivious to the meaning of the installation: a boat ride through Cai's past works.

I want to believe that the tigers don't wait in line for an hour to take the boat ride--they just tear off a ticket with a number, deli style.


Cai Guo-Qiang (Chinese, b. 1957)
Head On, 2006
99 life-sized replicas of wolves and glass wall;
Wolves: papier mâchß, plaster, fiberglass, resin, and painted hide
Dimensions variable
Deutsche Bank Collection, Commissioned by Deutsche Bank AG
Installed at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 2008
© Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation New York
Photo by David Heald


I want to believe that the 99 replicas of wolves in Head On (2006), which look as though they are running above our heads and crashing into a sliver-thin transparent Plexiglas wall, never magically come to life and realize the insanity of their self-destruction (unlike the rest of us who seem to be rushing toward total extinction).


Cai Guo-Qiang (Chinese, b. 1957)
Borrowing your Enemy's Arrows, 1998
Wooden boat, canvas sail, arrows, metal, rope, Chinese flag, and electric fan
Boat approximately 152.4 x 720 x 230 cm;
arrows approximately 62 cm each
Gift of Patricia Phelps de Cisneros in Honor of Glenn D. Lowry
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Installed at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 2008
© Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation New York
Photo by David Heald


I want to believe that Borrowing Your Enemy's Arrows (1996), comprised of a found fishing wooden boat pierced with 3,000 Chinese arrows and one tiny Chinese flag waving in the breeze of an electric-fan, strikes the visitor as the most relevant installation of all. Based on a third-century Chinese legend, this work refers to General Zhuhge Liang who faced his enemies with insufficient ammunition. Cleverly, he had dummy figures fashioned and then led his fake army across the Yangtze River under a cloud of thick predawn fog. Deceived by this "sudden attack," the opposition sent its arrows into the bodies of the dummies. The general then returned with the enemies' arrows and ultimately prevailed. Could it be that American fast-food chains and marketing strategies are the arrows China borrows today?

I want to believe that the installation Venice's Rent Collection Courtyard (1999), a recreation of Cai's Venice Biennial piece which features life-size sculptures fashioned by Long Xu Li and nine other guest artisan sculptors from China, is the most moving piece in the exhibition. Based on a 100-figure ensemble commission by the Communist government during the Cultural Revolution, these Social Realist clay statues show people working, struggling and suffering. As the clay dries, it severely cracks, marring the masterful execution of the images and yet breathing an additional poignancy into this heroic tableau of self-sacrifice--hinting at a political critique through irony.


Cai Guo-Qiang (Chinese, b. 1957)
Reflection-A Gift from Iwaki, 2004
Excavated wooden boat and porcelain
Dimensions variable
Caspar H. Schübbe Collection
Installed at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 2008
© Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation New York
Photo by David Heald.


I want to believe that Reflection-A Gift from Iwaki (2004), is the most sublime work of twenty-first century art, to date. An enormous excavated wooden boat, found in Iwaki, Japan, the hull is filled with and spills out buckets and buckets of mostly white (some light blue) Chinese porcelain figurines, dishes and other common vessels. Its gargantuan scale feels vaguely mythic, as if it came from the bowels of Davy Jones' locker or a Spielbergian movie set. Surely, the most indelible image of the entire show.

I want to believe that even though I sat through most of the numerous video recordings of Cai's "explosive events," I am not acquiring a taste for video art. (I checked into the Whitney Biennial for rehabilitation and now I am completely restored to loathing-mode.)

I want to believe that Everything is Museum, (on view during I Want to Believe), curated by Cai Guo-Qiang in collaboration with local communities and with contributions by Kiki Smith, Tan Dun, Norman Foster, and Jennifer Wen Ma, was good--but I did not realize it was downstairs in the Sackler Center for Arts Education until I left the museum. (Better signage would have been appreciated.)

__________________________

Cai Guo-Qiang was born in Quanzhou, Fujian Province, China in 1957. Trained in set design at the Shanghai Drama Institute from 1981 to 1985, he then moved to Japan in 1986, where he developed his signature gunpowder productions. His best known series Projects for Extraterrestrials began in 1989. Since 1995, Cai has resided in New York.

Cai was a finalist for the Hugo Boss Prize in 1996 and exhibited his work at the Guggenheim with the other finalists that year. He was awarded the 48th Venice Biennial International Golden Lion Prize in 1999, the CalArts/Alpert Award in the Arts in 2001, and the 7th Hiroshima Art Prize in 2007.

Cai is the Director of Visual and Special Effects for the opening and closing ceremonies in Beijing's 2008 Olympic Games. I Want to Believe is expected to travel to the National Art Museum of China in Beijing under the auspices of the Center for International Cultural Exchange, Ministry of Culture, P.R.C., as a part of the cultural Olympiad during the Olympic Games in August 2008. The exhibition will be on view at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in spring 2009.

References and Further Reading:

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum: Cai Guo-Qiang: I Want to Believe

Cai Guo-Qiang (the artist's website)

Borrowing Your Enemy's Arrows (1996), from the Museum of Modern Art

Cai Guo-Qiang: I Want to Believe YouTube video of the Guggenheim installation

Cai Guo-Qiang: I Want to Believe was on view through May 28, 2008 at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1071 5th Avenue (at 89th Street), New York, NY 10128 (Telephone: 212-423-3500; Website). The museum is open Saturday through Wednesday from 10:00 a.m. to 5:45 p.m., and Friday from 10:00 a.m. to 7:45 p.m. (Closed Thursday.) Admission is $18.00 for adults, $15.00 students and Seniors (65 years +) with valid ID, and free to members and children under 12.

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From your Guide: Beth Gersh-Nesic is an art history professor, author, art critic and the director of the New York Arts Exchange, an arts education service which offers tours, lectures and workshops in various venues, including museums, galleries, artists' studios and arts organizations.