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Cai Guo-Qiang (1957, CN)

Artist Rank (2007): 339 –

Most exhibitions in:
USA	23

Most exhibitions with:
Name	Rank	№
Zhang Huan	288	12
Navin Rawanchaikul	1401	11
Marina Abramović	60	11
Xu Bing	705	11

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Biography

1957
Born in Quanzhou, Fujian (CN)
The son of a historian and painter, Cai was trained in stage design at the Shanghai Drama Institute from 1981 to 1985 and his work has, since the outset, been scholarly and often politically charged. Having accomplished himself across a variety of media, Cai initially began working with gunpowder to foster spontaneity and confront the suppression that he felt from the controlled artistic tradition and social climate in China at the time. While living in Japan from 1986 to 1995, Cai explored the properties of gunpowder in his drawings, an inquiry that eventually led to his experimentation with explosives on a massive scale, and the development of his signature explosion events, exemplified in his series, Projects for Extraterrestrials. These explosion projects, both wildly poetic and ambitious at their core, aim to establish an exchange between viewers and the larger universe around them.

Cai Guo-Qiang's practice draws on a wide variety of symbols, narratives, traditions and materials such as fengshui, Chinese medicine, dragons, roller coasters, computers, vending machines and gunpowder. Through the years, Cai has formulated collaborative relationships with specialists and experts from various disciplines, including scientists, doctors, fengshui masters, designers, architects, choreographers and composers such as Issey Miyake, Raphael Vinoly, Zaha Hadid and Tan Dun.

Among many of the artist's solo exhibitions and projects are Cai Guo-Qiang: Inopportune, Mass MoCA, North Adams, 2005; Cai Guo-Qiang: Unlucky Year and Traveler, Freer & Sackler Gallery and Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden, Washington DC, 2004; Light Cycle: Explosion Project for Central Park, Creative Time, New York, 2003; Ye Gong Hao Long: Explosion Project for Tate Modern, Tate Modern, London, 2003; Transient Rainbow, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2002; Cai Guo-Qiang, Shanghai Art Museum, 2002; APEC Cityscape Fireworks Show, Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation, Shanghai, 2001; Cai Guo-Qiang: An Arbitrary History, Musee d'Art Contemporain, Lyon, 2001; Cultural Melting Bath: Projects for the 20th Century, Queens Museum of Art, New York, 1997; Flying Dragon in the Heavens, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humblebaek, 1997; The Earth Has Its Black Hole Too, Hiroshima, 1994; and Project to Extend the Great Wall of China by 10,000 Meters, Jiayuguan City, 1993. The Everything Is Museum series, in which the Cai Guo-Qiang turns alternative spaces into exhibition sites where contemporary art and culture meet the local communities, includes DMoCA: Dragon Museum of Contemporary Art, Niigata, Japan; UMoCA: Under Museum of Contemporary Art, Colla di Val d�fElsa, Italy and, most recently, BMoCA: Bunker Museum of Contemporary Art: 18 Solo Exhibitions, which was curated by the artist and opened in September 2004 in Kinmen (Quemoy), Taiwan. Cai Quo-Qiang also curated the inaugural China pavilion at the 51st Biennale di Venezia, 2005.

Among the many honors bestowed upon Cai Guo-Qiang are the prestigious Golden Lion Award at the 48th Biennale di Venezia and the 2001 CalArts/Alpert Award in the Arts. He was also selected as a finalist for the 1996 Hugo Boss Prize.
Lives and works
since 1995
in New York, NY (US)

Public exhibitions 82