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Cai Guo-Qiang was born in 1957 in Quanzhou City, Fujian Province, China. The son of a historian and painter, Cai (surname) was trained in stage design at the Shanghai Drama Institute from 1981 to 1985, and his work has, since the outset, been scholarly and often politically charged. Having mastered a variety of mediums, Cai initially began working with gunpowder to foster spontaneity and confront the suppression that he felt from the controlled artistic tradition and social climate in China at the time. While living in Japan from 1986 to 1995, Cai explored the properties of gunpowder in his drawings, an inquiry that eventually led to his experimentation with explosives on a massive scale and the development of his signature explosion events, exemplified in his series Projects for Extraterrestrials. These explosion projects, both wildly poetic and ambitious at their core, aim to establish an exchange between viewers and the larger universe around them.
Cai quickly achieved international prominence during his years in Japan, and his work has been shown widely around the world. His approach draws on a wide variety of symbols, narratives, traditions, and materials such as feng shui, Chinese medicine, dragons, roller coasters, computers, vending machines, and gunpowder. He was selected as a finalist for the 1996 Hugo Boss Prize and has been honored with awards such as the 1999 Venice Biennials Golden Lion and the 2001 CalArts/Alpert Award in the Arts. The 2004 exhibition Cai Guo-Qiang: Inopportune at MASS MoCA won awards for Best Exhibition and Best Installation from the International Curators Association. Most recently, Cai was awarded the 7th Hiroshima Art Prize and the accompanying exhibition is scheduled to open in September 2008.
Among the artist's many solo exhibitions and projects are Cai Guo-Qiang on the Roof: Transparent Monument, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2006; curating the first China Pavilion at the 51st Venice Biennale, 2005; Tornado: Explosion Project for the Festival of China, Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington, D.C., 2005; Cai Guo-Qiang: Inopportune, Mass MoCA, North Adams, 2004; Cai Guo-Qiang: Traveler, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery and Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., 2004; organizing and curating exhibitions at BMoCA (Bunker Museum of Contemporary Art), Kinmen Island, Taiwan, 2004; Light Cycle: Explosion Project for Central Park, New York, 2003; Ye Gong Hao Long (Mr. Ye Who Loves Dragons): Explosion Project for Tate Modern, Tate Modern, London, 2003; Transient Rainbow, New York, for Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2002; Cai Guo-Qiang, Shanghai Art Museum, 2002; Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Cityscape Fireworks, Shanghai, 2001; Cai Guo-Qiang: An Arbitrary History, Musée d'Art Contemporain de Lyon, 2001; Cai Guo-Qiang: Cultural Melting Bath: Projects for the 20th Century, Queens Museum of Art, New York, 1997; Cai Guo-Qiang: Flying Dragon in the Heavens, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humblebaek, Denmark, 1997; The Earth Has Its Black Hole Too: Project for Extraterrestrials No. 16, Hiroshima, 1994; and Project to Extend the Great Wall of China by 10,000 Meters: Project for Extraterrestrials No. 10, Gobi Desert, Jiayuguan, China, 1993.
Through years of artistic practice, Cai has formulated collaborative relationships with specialists and experts from various disciplines, including scientists, doctors, feng shui masters, designers, architects, choreographers, filmmakers, and composers, including Zaha Hadid, Lin Hwai-min, Issey Miyake, Tan Dun, Tsai Ming-liang, and Rafael Vinőly, among others. Cai is currently a core member of the creative team that is planning the opening and closing ceremonies of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.
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