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September 26, 2011

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Home » City specials » Hangzhou

Artist blasts his way onto the scene with gunpowder drawings

By Xu Wenwen | September 26, 2011, Monday | Print Edition

CAI Guoqiang is an artist with explosive talent. His specialty is drawings made with gunpowder. The New York-based artist and curator has been known for some time, but he jumped into the limelight for good in 2008 after he directed the visual effects for the opening and closing ceremonies of the Beijing Olympic Games.

Last Thursday at Zhejiang Art Museum in Hangzhou, Cai completed a gunpowder drawing called "Tides" with the help of 100 volunteers. The massive piece is 36 meters long and 3 meters tall.

In his gunpowder drawings, the explosive is used as a dye. After exploding, it leaves a special smoky effect on paper.

"Tides" depicts the world's largest tidal bore on the Qiantang River. It features lots of sea spray in black and brown - the color of exploded gunpowder.

The artist says he was inspired to create the grand work after watching the tidal bore last year.

"I immediately thought gunpowder would convey the tremendous momentum of the tide," the 54-year-old says. "I wanted to turn the energy of gunpowder into the energy of the tidal bore."

At the moment he lives in Hangzhou and is working on 14 pieces - "Tides" is the biggest - for his exhibition at Zhejiang Art Museum in April 2012, which is sponsored by Swiss watchmaking manufacturer Rolex.

The China-born Cai says one of the attractions of working with gunpowder is that the final outcome is a bit unpredictable.

For example, in "Tides," part of a footprint appeared after the gunpowder was lit due to the carelessness of a volunteer. Cai says he had to slightly revise it into a small wave.

"That's the uncontrollable nature of the art," he says. "To draw with gunpowder is like dating a woman. You never really know what's going to happen next until it happens."

He says he started working with gunpowder in the mid 1980s, aiming to confront his suppressive, controlled personality.

"As an artist, you have to be brave and bold," he adds.

Those fortunate enough to watch him create one of his gunpowder drawings definitely get more bang for their buck than watching an artist sketch people outside tourist attractions.

At the museum, there were hundreds of people, including the volunteers and journalists, watching Cai create "Tides."

American Nicole Wiendling, who is studying in Hangzhou on a fellowship, says watching Cai work is quite different from seeing his drawings in a book.

"I've seen Cai's work reproduced in books but it's interesting to appreciate the production on the spot," she says. "It makes me understand the philosophy and artistic character."

It took Cai and his team of volunteers three days to prepare the grand work although the fun part, the explosion, only lasted a few seconds.

Before the big bang, there is a lot of preparation. First, Cai creates a sketch painting, then lays cardboard hollowed out with patterns according to the sketch on drawing paper, which is a thick handmade Japanese paper that does not burn easily. Next he sprinkles gunpowder on the cardboard, then removes the cardboard and revises the pattern. Once again, he covers the drawing, this time with two layers of cardboard, before finally lighting the gunpowder.

No more dyes are added to the drawing except the artist's signature, which is in ink.

For "Tides," Cai says the sketch was borrowed heavily from paintings of the Qiantang River made in the Tang (AD 618-907) and Song (960-1279) dynasties.

"Ancient artists did a great job of depicting the river, so all I needed to do was adopting a modern art form to express my feeling about the tidal bore," he says.

In his version, the power of the tidal bore seems to leap off the paper. It's as if you are there watching the wave rush up river.

To create the large piece, Cai used more than 10 types of gunpowder weighing a total of 10 kilograms and a blasting fuse measuring 150 meters. "Different gunpowders generate different effects," he says. "For example, at the part of the peace wave, I used a weak powder. At the part of the bore's distortion, I used lots of strong ones."

The artist has other tricks. To create the cloudy and smoky effect as the wave crests, he used glassine, a transparent paper, between the drawing paper and cardboard.

Cai has created three other gunpowder drawings in Hangzhou although one failed because too much gunpowder was used.

His work draws on a wide variety of symbols, narratives, traditions and materials such as feng shui, Chinese medicine, landscape paintings, science, flora and fauna, portraiture and fireworks.

His experimentation with explosives have led to Cai's signature "explosion events," such as the fireworks he used to create 29 feet for the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics.

In 1993, his "Extend the Great Wall of China by 10,000 Meters" led him to create a blazing line of red fire across the black desert at the end of the wall in northwestern China.

Cai says the themes he concentrates on have changed as he has matured. In his youth he liked to express anger, later he cared more about the philosophy of the world.

For his Hangzhou exhibition, Cai will create a series about "slowing down and enjoying life."

He says some of the pieces will feature famous places in Hangzhou like Leifeng Pagoda and Baoshi Mountain.

Thinking further ahead, Cai plans to do some gunpowder drawings on silk.

"It will be another uncontrollable date," Cai says, with a knowing smile.

Hangzhou


 

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