Biography
Born in 1957 in Quanzhou, China, Cai Guo-Qiang is a Chinese visual artist who has been living and working in New York since 1995. The son of a painter, Guo-Qiang studied at the Shanghai Theatre School between 1981 and 1985, where he trained in scenography in the performing arts department. His theatre studies have been a great influence in his artistic practice.
He lived in Japan between 1986 and 1995, where he studied the properties of gunpowder, that he began to integrate into his drawings. The use of gunpowder later became his trademark.
In 1995 he traveled to the United States, which allowed him to increase his exposure in America and Europe. In 1999, he participated in the Venice Biennale and was awarded a Golden Lion. He became world famous in 2008, when he worked as Director of Visual and Special Effects for the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the Beijing Olympic Games.
A truly accomplished artist, he uses diverse media and techniques such as installation, sculpture and painting. Guo-Qiang is particularly known for his use of pyrotechnic effects and for his gunpowder drawings. The works "Explosions and Space Holes" (1989), "Primeval Fireball - The Project of Projects" (2000), "Cuyahoga River Lightning" (2019) all use gunpowder.
These monumental and ephemeral works evoke the impermanence of fireworks shows. Guo-Qiang's monumental installations illustrate pyrotechnics through their size, structure and composition, as for example with the works "Head on" (2006), "Inopportune: Stage on" (2009), or "Flying Together" (2011). His practice is influenced by the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei.
Guo-Qiang also creates works inspired by nature and animals, such as "Heritage" (2013), "Tea Pavilion" (2013), "Eucalyptus" (2013) or "The Ninth Wave sailing on the Huangpu River by the Bund" (2014).
Guo-Qiang's art combines Asian culture with modernity and thus breaks down the borders between East and West...
In 2012, he received the Praemium Imperiale, a prize awarded by the Japanese Imperial Family since 1989 on behalf of the Japanese Association of Fine Arts.
Today Cai Guo-Qiang is a world-renowned contemporary artist.
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