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Cai Guo-Qiang (s=蔡国强; born 8 December 1957) is a Chinese artist living in the US. He primarily utilizes pyrotechnics, with gunpowder and fireworks at the center at the of many of his works. He is most notable for his 2008 involvement in the Beijing Olympics fireworks.
As an adolescent and teenager, Cai witnessed the social effects of the Cultural Revolution first-hand, personally participating in demonstrations and parades himself. He grew up in a setting where explosions were common, whether they were the result of cannon blasts or celebratory fireworks. He also "saw gunpowder used in both good ways and bad, in destruction and reconstruction".
In his late teens and early twenties, Cai Guo-Qiang acted in two martial art films, The Spring and Fall of a Small Town and Real Kung Fu of Shaolin. Later intrigued by the modernity of Western art forms such as oil painting, he studied stage design at the Shanghai Theater Academy from 1981 to 1985. The experience allowed him a more comprehensive understanding of stage practices and a much-heightened sense for theater, spatial arrangements, interactivity, and teamwork.
In 1998, Cai worked with fashion designer Issey Miyake on a one-off collection for Miyake's Guest Artist series. For it, Cai arranged gunpowder on white garments in the form of dragons symbolizing life, and set fire to the powder to burn the images into the clothes. Miyake then had the images reproduced as fabric prints for his Pleats Please line.
Inopportune: Stage One (2004) is also featured in the main entrance of the Seattle Art Museum.
At the “WE ARE” event, the first pyrotechnic event in U.S. history to feature more than one thousand aerial drones armed with fireworks, several people were injured by falling debris and scrap materials from the drones and fireworks.
Approximately 4,000 to 4,500 guests stood on the Coliseum’s playing field to watch the fiery and smoky production that triggered several loud blasts in and around the stadium and the neighboring USC campus. It is unknown how many spectators were injured from the blasts and falling debris. Cai, who may be best known his work for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, has not responded to media requests for information concerning what went wrong during his fireworks show.
In addition to the fireworks display, the Getty, the wealthiest arts organization in the world, has planned “Cai Guo-Qiang: A Material Odyssey,” an exhibition at the USC Pacific Asia Museum to survey Cai’s gunpowder art. Cai’s exhibit and fireworks performance are funded by Eva and Ming Hsieh, Co-Founders of Fulgent Genetics; Peggy Cherng and Andrew Cherng, Co-Chairs and Co-CEOs of Panda Express; the Getty Patron Program; Yan Luo, Ellen and Dominic Ng, Haiyan Ren, and Sophia and Anqiang Zhang.
The Ascending Dragon was part of a promotional campaign for Arc'teryx. Although organizers claimed that described the show used "used biodegradable, environmentally friendly materials" and that all stock herds had been relocated, no environmental assessment was completed prior to the event. Arc'teryx issued a public apology and stated that it would work with an external agency to assess the project's impact. Cai issued a public statement in the Chinese media, reading: “My studio and I attach great importance to this and humbly accept all criticism of our artistic creation on the plateau with a modest heart and sincerely thank you for your concern and reminders.”
Cai is one of the most well-known and influential Chinese contemporary artists, having represented his country at the Venice Biennale in 1999 with his project Venice's Rent Collection Courtyard, a time-based sculpture which he had artisans recreate the Rent Collection Courtyard, a work of Socialist Realist propaganda sculpture. Cai returned to Venice in 2005 to curate the Chinese pavilion.
His work has also attracted controversy. Venice's Rent Collection Courtyard drew condemnation within China from the original authors of the Socialist Realist sculpture for destroying their "spiritual property." Who Owns the People's Art?, Art in America Some critics have asserted that while his work references politics and philosophy, he seems to switch positions at will and that the references seem relatively opportunistic.
In response to the critical backlash against his appropriation in the "Venice Rent Collection Courtyard," Cai has said in an interview in The Brooklyn Rail:
From May 2–September 25, 2010, Cai was featured in the solo exhibition Cai Guo-Qiang: Peasant Da Vincis, which presented works from peasants in China. This includes homemade airplanes, helicopters, submarines, and robots.
Cai also created Odyssey, a permanent gunpowder drawing for the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston in Fall 2010. Installed as part of the museum's ongoing Portal Project and stretching across forty-two panels, it is one of his largest gunpowder drawings to date. Another solo exhibition, 'Cai Guo-Qiang – 1040M Underground, was on view at the new foundation IZOLYATSIA. Platform for Cultural Initiatives in Donetsk, Ukraine through the fall of 2011.
In December 2011, Cai Guo-Qiang: Saraab opened at Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha, Qatar - the artist's largest since his 2008 retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum and his first solo exhibition ever in a Middle Eastern country. Saraab (mirage in Arabic) features more than fifty works, including seventeen newly commissioned pieces, thirty recent works and nine documentary videos. The exhibition opened on December 5th with Black Ceremony, the artist's largest ever daytime explosion event and includes several large-scale site-specific installations. In 2016, he curated What About the Art? Contemporary Art from China at Al Riwaq in Doha.
In 2012, Cai’s “Mystery Circle: Explosion Event,” featured 40,000 mini rockets that blasted for approximately two minutes at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles.
In 2016, Cai was tasked with designing the Berggruen Philosophy Prize's trophy.
Cai's work was featured in the 2016 Netflix documentary Sky Ladder: The Art of Cai Guo-Qiang, highlighting his work with fireworks, particularly his 1,650-foot ladder of gunpowder.
Cai was highlighted in the 2018 BBC series Civilisations, episode 9, "The Vital Spark" in which he was interviewed by Simon Schama, as an artist offering inspiration for our time. During this episode, Cai demonstrates the process of gunpowder art, by creating the two new works: Heaven Complex No. 1 and No. 2 (2017).
Cai is one of six artist-curators who made selections for Artistic License: Six Takes on the Guggenheim Collection, on view at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum from May 24, 2019, through January 12, 2020.
From September 26 to November 9, 2025, the White Cube Bermondsey, exhibited “ Cai Guo-Qiang Gunpowder and Abstraction 2015–2025.”
Cai purchased a former horse farm in Chester, New Jersey, in 2011 from an Olympic equestrian. The property was redesigned by architect Frank Gehry and his former student Trattie Davies. They converted the barn into a 14,000-square-foot studio, the stables into archives, and its hayloft into an exhibition space. Cai first met Gehry in 2009 at his Guggenheim Bilbao solo show, and their friendship included a 2013 trip to Cai's hometown of Quanzhou to propose a contemporary art museum. The two began work on Cai's Chester property soon after he purchased it. The 9,700-square-foot house is built outward from the original, stone core structure in glass and sequoia. At Cai's request, the titanium roofing curls at their edges, like flying carpets. The house has multiple small balconies. Cai lives in the Chester house with his wife and two daughters.
The Ascending Dragon
On September 19, 2025, Cai's The Ascending Dragon, a piece related to the 1989 gunpowder drawing Ascending Dragon: Project for Extraterrestrials No. 2, received significant public backlash due to potential environmental harm. Fireworks emitted colored smoke on a plateau in Shigatse in the Tibet Autonomous Region, which is one of the world's most fragile ecosystems in the world. The performance was staged at an elevation approximately 18,000 feet above sea level.
Other
In an interview in The Brooklyn Rail, Cai said of his piece Light Cycle, commissioned by Creative Time in 2003: "Because this was a post 9/11 New York I wanted to provide an anchor and reference point for people to feel hope. That is why I picked the reservoir in Central Park and made a full circle. It is kind of a protection, a symbol for comfort and fullness."
Awards
He was selected as a finalist for the 1996 Hugo Boss Prize and won the 48th Venice Biennale International Golden Lion Prize and 2001 CalArts/Alpert Award in the Arts. In 2008, he was subject to a large-scale mid-career retrospective, I Want To Believe, at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, which eventually traveled to the National Art Museum of China in Beijing and the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. He also gained widespread attention as the Director of Visual and Special Effects for the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. In October 2012, he was awarded the Praemium Imperiale in Tokyo as the first Chinese national Laureate. In May 2022, he was awarded the John D. Rockefeller III Award by the Asian Cultural Council alongside violinist and educator Midori. The John D. Rockefeller 3rd Award is given to individuals from Asia or the U.S. who have made significant contributions to the international understanding, practice, or study of the visual or performing arts of Asia.
Personal life
Cai moved from Beijing to New York in 1995, but as of 2017, he continues to maintain a separate house in the former. In the mid-2010s, he made his gunpowder paintings at the Fireworks by Grucci factory in Bellport, New York. His Manhattan studio was renovated by Rem Koolhaas's Office for Metropolitan Architecture. Cai intends for it to eventually become a foundation with public viewing. Unlike his prior studios, he sought a property where he would work and live with his family, fulfilling a goal to combine his personal and professional lives.
Selected solo exhibitions and projects
(2026). 9780500974933, Thames & Hudson. ISBN 9780500974933
Selected bibliography
External links
Categories: 1957 Births, Living People, Hokkien People, Artists From Fujian, Asian Cultural Council Grantees, Chinese Contemporary Artists, People From Quanzhou, Recipients Of The Praemium Imperiale, Shanghai Theatre Academy Alumni, 20th-century Chinese Male Artists, 21st-century Chinese Male Artists
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