Cai Guo-Qiang: I Want to Believe

Penguin May 16th, 2008

cai-guo-qiang-i-want-to-believe

Guggenheim:

Cai Guo-Qiang is internationally acclaimed as an artist whose creative transgressions and cultural provocations have literally exploded the accepted parameters of art making in our time.
This is especially true of Inopportune: Stage One, Cai’s largest installation to date, which presents nine real cars in a cinematic progression that simulates a car bombing, occupying the central atrium of the Frank Lloyd Wright rotunda.

Ninja and I will be in NYC for her portfolio review. We’re also going to enjoy some Jacques Pepin, that’s two French chefs in 1 week! We’re going to be spending the rest of the day at the Guggenheim enjoying “cars explode”.

-Penguin

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5 Responses to “Cai Guo-Qiang: I Want to Believe”

  1. chrison 16 May 2008 at 3:40 am

    Damn, I’m jealous! I loved Cornelia Parker’s ‘Cold, Dark Matter’.

    Just a minute; is this the man who made the gunpowder paintings? Some of those were rather good.

  2. Penguinon 16 May 2008 at 6:35 pm

    Yeah, he did the gunpowder paintings. they’re amazing. we also saw video of him making them. some funny stuff :)

  3. chrison 17 May 2008 at 9:24 am

    Yeah! They remind me of Andy Goldsworthy’s sheep paintings - the ones made by laying a canvas under a block of mineral feed in a sheep field. Though I think I like the Goldworthys better, the randomness seems more ‘natural’. It seems to make more sense, the way nature ‘randomises’ things. I’m still hoping someone finds a solution to the prime number mystery during our lifetime, I would love to know whether they really are random, or how they are ‘chosen’.

  4. Penguinon 19 May 2008 at 7:56 pm

    Hey Chris,

    The sheep field thing sounds pretty interesting, I need to check it out.

    Cai’s gunpowder doesn’t seem to be about randomness. Though there is an aspect of chaos in it. I think his main point is “creation through destruction”.

    The prime number problem is interesting. I never saw it as random because very little of math is random. At the same time, to say that there’s some formula is difficult to. The main problem comes from the complexity of the real number set. The geometric growth makes processing them pretty difficult.

    -Penguin

  5. What is Art? | Ninja vs Penguinon 20 May 2008 at 3:25 pm

    [...] Friday, Ninja and I went to the Guggenheim to see Cian Guo-Qiang. Both Ninja and I were really inspired. As I was coming out of the show, I thought to myself, [...]

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