Wednesday night, internationally-known Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang will ignite the 162 foot-long gunpowder drawing that he and a team of volunteers have been preparing for several days. The resulting artwork, composed of 42 10-foot panels will become the permanent wall covering for the new Arts of China Gallery at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, to be unveiled on October 17.
The ignition will take place at a specially-prepared warehouse near Reliant Stadium, and Art Attack will be there to document and report.
But yesterday we sat down with Cai (and translator Chinyan Wong) during a break to discuss the project and get some background on his process.
On how he came to use gunpowder:
"Back in the early 1980s, as a young man, I wanted to sort of liberate myself a little, and gunpowder seemed to be a suitable medium. It's also my rebellious attitude toward the society at the time. In my youth I was also deeply influenced by my father, who is a classical Chinese painter, and I felt my persona was very similar to my father's, which was overly cautious. As a painter, that won't do, because you won't be able to create paintings with any grandeur, so it was a way to develop my artistic style.""When I was starting off, I was trying to restrain myself, especially when I'm trying to depict subjects that are often seen in traditional Chinese painting--for example, the rocks and the flora and the vegetation in the drawing. I'm trying to relate back to Chinese culture, so the general public can understand where I'm coming from and the sources I'm inspired by. The artist has to understand where he is coming from. Once everyone is done helping make the stencils, then I'll start applying gunpowder. In this part of the process there's more control and restraint, but later on as I use gunpowder, there will be more spontaneity and uncontrollability."
"When you contemplate what happens in the world in our personal matters, there's too much logic, and we're trying to organize this logic all the time. For example, in art history there's this East/West argument, and it's just too much to think about. And contemporary vs. ancient art. A lot of people, they feel that contemporary art is very inaccessible and difficult to understand, so this is an opportunity for the artist to bring the creative process closer to people. In the end, this explosion allows the art to speak for itself."
