Drawings with a bang? Cai Guo-Qiang is an artist who was born in 1957 in Quanzhou, Fujian Province, China, and has a background in stage design. While living in Japan, he explored the properties of gunpowder in his drawings. This led to experimentation with explosives on a massive scale and creating explosion events. The projects explore ideas of Eastern philosophy and contemporary social issues, and create a site-specific approach to culture and history.
Cai Guo-Qiang: Saraab (“mirage”) is a large exhibition of more than 50 works at the Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Qatar. The show includes his signature gunpowder drawings, large-scale site-specific installations and a large explosion event of Black Ceremony. The works in the show explore the historic and contemporary symbolism of the Arabian Gulf and its seafaring culture, as well as Islamic history.
In October 2011, with the help of 200 local volunteers, Cai Guo Qiang produced a series of large-scale gunpowder drawings that trace the maritime route from ancient Arabia to Quanzhou. Volunteers helped with the production of the works which involved placing large pieces of paper on the floor, positioning stencils, and dusting gunpowder on the pieces. Boards and bricks were put on top of the paper and the artist and his trained team would light the pieces with the volunteers watching the explosions.
The process was open to the public, and the final drawings are images reminiscent of the botanical patterns seen in Islamic decorative art. A video is online that documented the production of the piece.
Links:
Video of 200 Doha Residents work with Cai Guo-Qiang to make Explosive Art