Cai Guo-Qiang 蔡国强

Famous for his pyrotechnical art practice, Cai Guo-Qiang riffs on themes of destruction, chance, and regional culture. The artist draws on disparate references—including mythology, cosmology, Buddhism, Chinese medicine, and contemporary social issues—as he turns the sky into a canvas he “paints” with colored gunpowder. He is perhaps best known for his displays at the opening and closing ceremonies for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics; his 1995–96 “The Century with Mushroom Clouds: Project for the 20th Century” series of ignitions at symbolic locations in the United States; and Sky Ladder, a 2015 event over his hometown, Quanzhou, which was captured in the documentary Sky Ladder: The Art of Cai Guo-Qiang (2016). Though his fireworks are immediate signifiers of Chinese culture, Cai aims to establish a dialogue among international viewers. A recipient of the 1999 Venice Biennale Golden Lion and the prestigious Praemium Imperiale, Cai has enjoyed solo shows at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim Museum, the Museo del Prado, and the National Art Museum of China, among many others. Cai has also made sculptures and gunpowder-on-canvas paintings.