Artist26: Cai Guo-Qiang

Cai Guo-Qiang has made one of the most varied bodies of work that I've seen so far. Initially attracted to his work by the image from his Head On series (pictured above), I did a bit more research and saw how just much he has produced. His installations really catch the eye as he's produced such a strong sense of frozen movement/time in many of his works. The anatomically correctness of the works also helps draw in the viewer, allowing the tigers and wolves dying motionless in the air to make the piece that much more immersive.

One style common in Guo-Qiang's work for much of his career is his gunpowder art. Much of his gunpowder work focuses on nature. His Chaos in Nature (pictured below) and Pine Tree (pictured more below) are two examples.









What really got my attention me was how he and his team actually detonate the gunpowder to create many of the effects in his art. This is evident in the image from Pine Trees. You can see the spreading char marks as the heat spread out from the center as it was ignited. This style of working is particularly interesting to me since it's such a raw example of using physical reactions in art. Yes, the creation of paint and subsequent applications of chemicals, sealants, etc to the art is a chemical/physical reaction, but the gunpowder explosions are less subtle and create a more drastic effect (at least to me). To take an explosion and control it just enough that it can be recognizable by others as representative of something else is pretty impressive. I'll have to try fooling around with different physical and chemical reactions in my own work and see what happens.