ARTIST Cai Guoqiang has rarely been known to miss a pageant in China, particularly in recent years. And there's no doubt that his fame has risen in sync with the country's fast-paced development.

In 2001, his pyrotechnics lit up the skyline for the opening of Shanghai APEC; in 2008, his fireworks stunned the world at the curtain-raising ceremony of the Summer Olympics in Beijing.

And now he turns up at World Expo 2010 Shanghai.

But while he hasn't been invited to do any particular pageant job for the opening, he's found another reason to be here.

Cai is leading a group of Chinese peasant artists who, under the cheeky label "Peasant: da Vincis," are mounting their whimsical creations for an inaugural exhibition at the newly renovated Rockbund Art Museum which started this week.

"I went to Shanghai in 2001 to design the APEC Cityscape Fireworks, and later on I did the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympics in Beijing," recalled Cai.

"My activities in China have largely been in an official capacity, and although this occasion is concurrent with the World Expo, I am actually participating purely in a private capacity," he said.

The thin and slender Cai, clad in casual sports wear, is quick to defend his comparatively minor role in the city during the time of its high-profile international exposure.

His own status is strong on the international events stage and he is one of the few Chinese artists who have been praised by Western mainstream critics.

Born in 1957 in Quanzhou, Fujian Province, Cai prefers to call himself "an Asian peasant to the core."

The son of a historian and painter, his early memory of the poverty and vicissitudes of Chinese peasants was nurtured by his observation of rural dwellers in his neighborhood.

"I lived in a small city where our life often mingled with the countryside people," he said.

"I played with their kids, and my mum washed our clothes in the same river where they washed theirs.

"I remember that our family had many peasant relatives who would frequently visit us," he said.


However, unsophistication, hardwork and endurance are not what Cai explores about Chinese peasants at this exhibition.

"You will be fascinated to see how romantic and utopian these people are," he said.

Flying saucers, submarines, airplanes and even an aircraft carrier, it is hard to believe that these gargantuan machines were handmade by ordinary peasants in China.

A flying saucer hovering above the roof of the museum with the slogan "Never Learned How to Land" painted on its exterior was inspired by a simple remark made by Du Wenda from Anhui Province.

"The man is cute, because when he was so focused on making his invention fly, he didn't consider how to land it," Cai explained.

"But when used at the exhibition, the slogan inadvertently hints at the anxiety behind the rapid economic development of China."

Over the past six years, Cai has been collecting peasant-made inventions, a journey that took him from Beijing to eight provinces: Jiangsu, Anhui, Sichuan, Hubei, Guangdong, Fujian, Zhejiang and Jiangxi.

The path he travelled traversed over 9,000 kilometers and half of China, visiting 10 "da Vincis" to assemble the final pieces of the exhibition.

Cai talks enthusiastically about the inspiration for the show. "I had read some reports about peasant inventions in the Chinese newspapers. At first it was only amusing," he recalled.

"One day almost at the end of 2004 I saw a photo of 'Twilight No. 1,' a submarine built by Li Yuming, a peasant from Anhui Province. I was so impressed by the model's charm that I contacted him. Later I acquired the submarine, the very first piece by a peasant in my collection."

Cai reveals that his concerns for these peasants are not sociopolitical.

"Rather, my first impression was they are very similar to me. They are curious, they have a pioneering spirit, and their interests in creation are very similar to mine as an artist.

"In fact, I see myself in them," he explained. "I also display the ruins of the shattered airplane that killed one Chinese peasant."

Obviously Cai is broadening the limits of art through this exhibition.

He has already achieved international prominence with idiosyncratic conceptualizations of Eastern philosophy and contemporary social issues and utilizing site-specific approaches to culture and history which has encompassed diverse mediums including drawing, video and performance art.

Selected as a finalist for the 1996 Hugo Boss Prize and awarded the Golden Lion at the 48th Venice Biennale in 1999, he has had a smooth career path. After working in Fujian for several years after graduation, Cai furthered his study at the Department of Stage Design at Shanghai Drama Institute in 1981.

"Unlike other students, I still had a 36-yuan (US$4.39) monthly salary from the institute because of my previous employer's support," he said.

In 1986, Cai left Shanghai for Japan where he soon became popular as an artist.

"My artworks just coincided with the 'self-reflection' period in Japan," he recalled.

Cai's traditional performance elements, including gunpowder, feng shui and Chinese herbal medicine mingled with new meanings, soon swept the local art community.

A resident of New York since 1995, it was surprising to many that Cai would be tempted by the offer of roles at Shanghai APEC and the Beijing Olympics because he plays on much larger international stages.

But these two pageants were responsible for his stunning trajectory into stardom in the international art community.

"The experience of working with Beijing Olympics was akin to a kind of self-cultivation. To tell you the truth, I had already achieved my self-cultivation."

However the exposure he received made him an unwitting target.

Some people have questioned his identity, claiming it seemed he was taking advantage of his Chinese background on the international stage and his international background on the Chinese stage.

"I know what you mean," he said, "But I don't think the identity of an artist means a lot."

Undoubtedly everything has two sides: while Cai's fame has been boosted, he faces a tough challenge to take it further.

And by eschewing the glamorous fireworks of his previous shows, the new and unpredictable direction of focusing on ordinary people's accomplishments is more in keeping with his inner needs.

"Peasant: da Vincis" however is surely not an ending for Cai Guoqiang.