Cai Guo-Qiang Ignites The Seasons With Explosive New Installation

_Ignition of “Spring,” gunpowder drawing on porcelain as part of installation _Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter. In the main hall of Power Station of Art. Shanghai, 2014. Photo by Wen-You Cai

On July 17th, Cai Guo-Qiang helmed a weather-torn boat down the Huangpu River in Shanghai, China. Some of its 99 passengers—pandas, camels, tigers and other animals—hung over the sides with their limbs slung towards the water as if dazed, or muscle-less.

This was the opening leg of the artist’s newest work and exhibition, The Ninth Wave, which is now on show at the Power Station of Art museum space in Shanghai. As a continuation of that charter’s emphasis on nature’s suffering beneath man-made environmental crises, Guo-Qiang debuted a new gunpowder work, entitled Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, between July 21st and July 24th.

Each porcelain image is based on one of the four seasons, and channels its delicate form from Chinese literati artwork. Etched through an orchestrated gunpowder explosion, the pieces’ figures look firm, yet are ashy in color, as if imbued with a botanical rigor mortis. Certainly not a subtle work, the artist has, in a sense, created a funeral pyre for Mother Nature before mankind brings Her into oblivion.

"Fall" (2014). Photo by Zhang Feiyu

"Spring" (2014). Photo by Zhang Feiyu

Guo-Qiang is one of the few artists in history whose performances attract sports-like spectatorship. He developed a love for gunpowder during his time in Japan during the late 80s and early 90s, and ever since it’s played a pivotal role in defining his “explosive events.”

The giant firework formations of feet that paraded across the Beijing night sky during the 2008 Olympics, for example, were designed by Guo-Qiang. But so, too, were the many erratic yet contained explosions outside of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles in 2012, and throughout Paris in a 2013 installation called One Night Stand for the city-wide Nuit Blanche festival.

These are just a minor fraction of Guo-Qiang’s incendiary works, and the artist was even the recipient of the first batch of the US Department of State’s Medal of Arts award, and the Venice Bienniale’s Golden Lion in 1999. If Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter is any indication, his performative destruction won't be losing its spark anytime soon.

Winter (2014). Photo by Zhang Feiyu

Ignition of “Winter,” gunpowder drawing on porcelain as part of installation Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter. In the main hall of Power Station of Art. Shanghai, 2014. Photo by Wen-You Cai

You can keep up with Cai Guo-Qiang at his website. Follow the Power Station of Art here.

All images courtesy the artist and Wen-You Cai.

Follow Johnny Magdaleno on Twitter: @johnny_mgdlno

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