Nuclear Test Site, Nevada, February 14, 1996
蔡國強
Cai Guo-Qiang
Nuclear Test Site, Nevada, February 14, 1996
Shinya Watanabe
Date 12/12/2002
The Reason for Using Gunpowder to Create Art
The Century with Mushroom Cloud: Project for the 20th Century
Project to Extend the Great Wall of China by 10,000 Meters: Project for Extraterresterials No. 10.
Cai Guo-Qiang is one of the most important Chinese artists to have emerged internationally
in the 1990s. He is best known for his dramatic gunpowder projects at different
locations such as the entrance of museum to the APEC meeting place.
Cai Guo-Qiang was born in Quanzhou, China, in 1957. His father is a calligrapher
with massive knowledge of history and cultures, so the artist was influenced
by his father a lot. His native city Quanzhou is in Fujian province and it is
one of the most important military based cities because of the location close
to Taiwan.
When he was a child, he had seen many fighter planes and heard the sound of cannon shot.
In 1981, he moved to Shanghai to study theater at Shanghai Drama Institute. At that time, China did not have contemporary art school. When he studied theater in Shanghai, he learned conceptual idea of space, time, light, material and audiences. In these times, he showed his multi talents of violin, acting, painting and design. Some of the motifs in the dramas made by him in this period were about war and peace. In the school, everyone was curious about Andy Warhol and Joseph Beuys, but he thought that these arts were not important for China at that time because China did not experience commercial culture or environmental problems. When he was studying oil painting, he liked Cezanne, Picasso, Corneliu Baba and El Greco. Also he was influenced by Walter De Maria and Christo when he started to make earthworks. He thinks that the job of artist is to create time/space tunnels that science can not achieve.
He lived in Tokyo from 1986 to 1995 until he moved to New York City. He did
not intend to live in Tokyo for such a long time, but he became famous after
he appeared on cover of the famous art journal, Bijyutu Techo as a gunpowder
artist in 1992. Soon he became famous in the world and since then, he has bombed
German military base, Venice's Grand Canal, working power plant in Johannesburg
and even the dress designed by Issey Miyake.
This research paper focus on why he uses gunpowder and the two projects; The
century with Mushroom Cloud: Project for the 20th Century and Project to Extend
the Great Wall of China by 10,000 Meters: Project for Extraterrestrials No.10.
The aim of this paper is to understand the idea of the artist including its
theoretical background.
The reason to use gunpowder to create art
At first, there are many reasons why he uses gunpowder as a media to create
art. Originally, gunpowder was invented as a by-product of alchemy in China
around 200 B.C. Gunpowder is still called “fire medicine(火薬)” because it was
accidentally created during an attempt to produce a medicine.
Also he talked about the anthropological aspect of gunpowder.
“…in China every significant social occasion of any kind, good or bad ? weddings, funerals, the birth of a baby, a new home ? is marked by the explosion of fireworks. They even use fireworks when they elect Communist party officials, or after someone delivers a speech. Fireworks are like the town crier, announcing whatever’s going on in town.”(Friss-Hansen 14)
He had grown up in the military based city, so he had seen gunpowder used in
both good and bad way; he transferred these two ways to destruction and construction.
This idea is integrated in the work, No Destruction, No Construction: Bombing
the Taiwan Museum of Art. This work showed his mixed emotion about the relationship
between Taiwan and China by just bombing the museum by 25kg gunpowder.
In his work, gunpowder is also a tool to recognize the space and speed. Gunpowder
emits the light and this light is a key factor to understand his art. The speed
of light decides the space, so there is a new possibility to decide the new
time axis.
In Christianity and Jewish societies, time is straight line structure until
the breakthrough of Einstein. However, in other culture, this recognition of
time is not always true. Chapter four will discuss this issue more.
Also once he used gunpowder to explain the Big Bang, the creation of the universe.
In the work Fetus Movement Ⅱ: Project for Extraterrestrials No.9, he sat down
inside of the circle which was surrounded by gunpowder. It was dangerous project,
and his heart rate and brain wave were measured by scientist. However, his heart
rate did not change at all. During the explosion, he recited the passage of
Lao Zi and he felt this explosion as beginning of time, the birth of the universe.
Thus, in his work, gunpowder has many universal connotations.
The century with Mushroom Cloud: Project for the 20th Century, 1996
For him, it was clear that the twentieth century was the American century, and mushroom cloud was also a symbol of twentieth century. In nineteenth century, it did not exist and in twenty-first century, it will not exist anymore because of the technology of computer simulation. Also he connects the symbolic image of mushroom cloud to the Great Wall of China.
"I felt that the mushroom cloud was one of the most important symbols of
the twentieth century. After the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, military
use of nuclear technology continued in the form of a 'deterrent' or threat.
In a sense the mushroom cloud became increasingly conceptual, rather than real,
as time went on. It becomes like the Great Wall of China because, practically
speaking, the Wall doesn't really keep the enemy out. Once you climb the wall,
no matter how long it is, you've gotten across. But strategically and politically
it's extremely important to have this thing there. Displaying power, imposing
power, is extremely important. "(Friss-Hansen 22)
In this project, he makes mushroom cloud by small amount of gunpowder at the
places which are related to conceptual image or atomic bomb itself. These places
are nuclear test site in Nevada, Michel Heizer’s Double Negative, Robert Smithson’s
Spiral Jetty and Manhattan. Prior earthwork artists influenced him a lot, and
these earthworks make contrast with the mushroom cloud, the symbol of technology.
Michel Heizer’s Double Negative, February 14, 1996
These earthworks pull up the recognition of time and space through unfinished
condition and the impermanent character at the limited location. This location
which is far from city and gallery dislocates the nature to the area of consciousness.
These horizontal earthworks are also contrasted strikingly with the extreme
vertical and unstable structure of Manhattan.
Manhattan, New York, 20-21 April 1996
Also in this series, Manhattan is not only as a symbol of capitalism, but also the name of project to produce atomic bomb; Manhattan Project led by J. Robert Oppenheimer. About the work of Manhattan, the meaning of this work is totally changed after September 11th because the twin tower is in the photo next to the mushroom cloud. Probably artist recognized the danger of asymmetric situation of the capital and power in the world. Also in this work, he tricked the viewer from reality into fiction. In this process, Cai tried to appeal to the viewer to tell what the crisis of war is, and what a real problem of the world is.
Furthermore, there is one more contradiction about Manhattan and atomic bomb.
After September 11th, the site of World Trade Center is called Ground Zero,
but the original meaning of Ground Zero is the center of explosion of the atomic
bomb. This name shows the hysteric reaction of the United States which has not
experienced to be attacked by others.
Project to Extend the Great Wall of China by 10,000 Meters: Project for Extraterrestrials No.10.
In this project, artist established the dialogue between earth and the other
planets.
The length of Great Wall of China(万里長城) is approximately 2400 km and some part
of it is doubled. So, some Chinese people say that the length of the wall is
10,000 li(万里), means 5,000 km. Cai transfered this length to metric system,
and decided to extend the Great Wall of China by 10,000 meters. In this 10,000
meters extension, Cai says that chi(気) would circulate between the real and
the virtual, like the breathing of the universe. It is similar to what happens
when we go on the Internet:
We find ourselves plugged into a virtual world. Furthermore, the Great Wall
of China is the first place where the signal fire is invented. This is the beginning
of optical communication which composes the base of Internet.
Dana Friis-Hansen pointed out the influence of Walter De Maria's Mile Long Drawing.
(Friss-Hansen 57) There is a similarity of length and place. De Maria’s work
was in the desert area in California and Cai’s work is also in the Govi desert.
The desert is far from the real world, so it would be the best place to experience
the different thing from the daily life. This experience led the observer to
escape from earth mentally.
“Undoubtedly, other astronauts will go into space and observe events on Earth
but, to me, it seems more important that, mentally, we ourselves escape Earth
in order to see what is going on here.”(Dawei 82)
This macro point of view towards earth creates the new way of recognition, earth
without border, and human with cosmos. Also Cai mentioned the possibility to
find the breakthrough the limit of time.
“… my desire to break down this distance between human being and the cosmos,
to break down the barriers between countries. But the most important would be
to breakthrough the limit of time. Perhaps by setting up dynamite explosions
in space, we could establish an immediate connection to primordial chaos. In
trying to appreciate this event, which would last for only a thousandth of a
second, over a long period, perhaps we would succeed in breaking through time.”(Dawei
83)
The key for time recognition is space and distance. Great Wall of China is the
only man-made construction visible from outer space. So this place is the best
place to communicate to extraterrestrial and break the limit of time.
A to C=24 Hours (normal day based on sun)
A to B=23Hour56Minutes (based on other fixed star such as Sirius)
Now, we are living in the 24 hours day (A to C) which is defined by sun, the fixed star in the solar system. However, there are different fixed stars in the universe and if other fixed stars such as Sirius which is further than the solar system become the center of the universe and define the time, the time of the earth will be closer to the universal time. This is a deadly jump from the straight line structure of time defined by Christianity and history. The light of explosion generated by gunpowder reaches the Galaxy so theoretically, there is a dialogue between earth and the universe.
In this project, he used 500kg gunpowder for 10,000 meters long on the summit
of the mountains. Just before dusk at 7:35 PM, Cai ignited fuse with loud cheers.
It burnt at about 14 meters per second, much more slowly than the Cai’s previous
fuses.
The fire slithered along the ground with dignity such as a dragon. It took 15
minutes to reach the end of the fuse in the snowy mountain. This project was
achieved by many local Chinese people, 50 Japanese collaborators, 40,000 audiences,
critic and Chinese and Japanese politicians.
In this work, Cai deconstruct the meaning of the Great Wall of China. He pretended to extend the wall, but actually he destroyed it by fire, smoke and the collaboration of the people who have different backgrounds. As a conclusion, Cai deconstructed the meaning of the wall and exposed the meaninglessness of wall which separates the people.
This is a real collaboration and at least, this project succeeded in removing
the emotional wall between two countries, China and Japan.
Works Cited
Friss-Hansen, Dana. et al. Cai Guo-Qiang. London: Phaidon P, 2002
Dawei, Fei. et al. Cai Guo-Qiang. London: Themes & Hudson P, 2000
“Bijyutu Techo” Cai Guo Qiang’s CHADO Pavilion Homage to Tenshin Okakura. Japan: August 2002
“Bijyutu Techo” The consice history of 20th century Art Renovation of Visual sensations and Cognitive Powers Japan: January 2000
“Art Today” Who creates the Cai Guo Qiang Movement? Taiwan: August 2002
Hoving, Thomas. et al. Behind the Great Wall of China. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1972
(C) Copyright Shinya Watanabe