Cai Guo-Qiang

signed and titled in Chinese and dated 1995, framed

The Ullens Collection, Europe

France, Paris, Espace Cardin, Paris-Pékin, 5-28 October, 2002, p.67
China, Beijing, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Our Future: The Guy & Myriam Ullens Foundation Collection, 19 July to 12 October 2008, pp. 42-43

Christine Buci-Glucksmann ed., Modernités Chinoises, Skira Editore, Milan, Italy, 2003, p. 174
Thirty Years of Chinese Contemporary Art 1979-2009, Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai, China, 2010, p.178

This work is generally in good condition. There are several creases and tears to the paper, which are inherent to the artist's working medium and method. Please note that it was not examined out of its frame.
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“Right from the proverbial nest, life begins with a ‘0’, the gaping mouth waiting to be fed. We begin with this circle, which expresses a theme: civility and harmony. We begin with this circle, activating a sundial.”

Birth in Fire 
Cai Guo-Qiang

“Right from the proverbial nest, life begins with a ‘0’, the gaping mouth waiting to be fed. We begin with this circle, which expresses a theme: civility and harmony. We begin with this circle, activating a sundial.” At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Cai Guo-Qiang uttered these words, explaining the chosen theme of sundials he orchestrated for the Olympics’ opening ceremony fireworks. The theme of the circle, of birth—as symbolised by the sundial—is here touched upon with the same energy and fervour that Cai has always had for the subject.

The present piece, Sun Dial (Lot 152) is an early work that predates the Olympic fireworks, one which exemplifies a rare and early conception of this potent image. This series was created in Japan: Cai was commissioned to create an artwork for the Tokyo World Expo, and the Sun Dial works were part of his proposal for a then unrealised explosion event. This plan was to create a series of holes, or craters, at the site of the expo. These holes would be created in a line and filled with gunpowder. Above these would be a large magnifying glass, so that as the sun moved east to west throughout the day, the glass would refract light into the hole, causing the gunpowder to ignite intermittently.

While undoubtedly documenting this sense of wonder, Sun Dial is also a piece that is fizzing with energy, filled with potential. It is also this same vitality and curiosity that Cai’s works endlessly embody, that have granted him endless representation from numerous world class institutions, including the Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, the Taipei Fine Art Museum of China, the Guggenheim Museum in Berlin, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. While he is an artist who is a chameleon: shifting seamlessly through cultures and countries, Cai is also an artist who stays true to his Chinese identity. He is not only a creator capable of fusing different worlds onto a single canvas; he is also an artist who has chosen to do so with an erratic medium such as gunpowder. He has tamed it and mastered it into spectacular works. It is undoubtedly this capability and unprecedented medium that set him apart from other artists of his time.

Cai Guo-Qiang was born in the Fujian Province of Quanzhou in 1957, to a father who was a calligrapher and book-seller. The artist studied theatre design as well as stage props in Shanghai. In 1986, Cai moved to Japan, which marked the beginning of his serious artistic development. In Japan, Cai believed that he was able to find “China’s past”, marking a “return” to Chinese traditional culture, remnants of which could be found in Japan.   

During this time in Japan, Cai developed many art series that would carry on into his entire artistic career, such as the famous Project for Extraterrestrials series, which the artist began work on in the late eighties. Appropriate to this motif of turning skywards, Cai also produced works such as The Vague Border at the Edge of Time/ Space Project during this period. The artist was in fact likewise inspired by nature at large, producing as part of the Project for Extraterrestrials series, works such as 45.5 Meteorite Craters Made by Humans on Their 45.5 Hundred Million Year Old Planet: Project for Extraterrestrials No. 3 and Myth: Shooting the Suns: Project for Extraterrestrials No. 21, amongst others. The last of these series depicted a dial of sorts, with an arrow piercing its centre. It was against this background that Cai produced, for the first time, the Sundial series, of which the rare first is currently on offer in this present sale.

This unique piece depicts two separate halos, one larger at the base of the work, while a miniature counterpart floats atop the primary circle. While the top circle resembles a starburst of sorts, the lower, larger circle has regular patterns, etchings that are akin to markings, not unlike those of the titular sundial. The two rings are mesmerising and co-exist, and evoke structural qualities echoing the precision as dictated by feng-shui doctrines, which Cai has repeatedly mentioned as one of his artistic devices. Sun Dial was to become the launch of an entire series exploring this motif, shifting to horizontal depictions later on. Sun Dial, with its vertical composition, is rare in this aspect, better alluding, perhaps, to the correspondence between the earth and nature.

Just one year prior to the completion of Sun Dial, Cai organised a panel discussion specifically on feng-shui , entitled "Feng Shui: The Present Day Feng Shui and Cai Guo-Qiang's Mito Project" . This discussion concerned itself with the modern inclusion of feng-shui in society, and Cai’s usage of it in a project he participated in in the Japanese province of Mito. Following this, during his early years in New York, the curator Anneli Fuchs commented that Cai’s oeuvre “rests on a foundation of religious, philosophical, and aesthetic traditions that go back thousands of years.”¹ She remarked that, among other inspirations, Cai drew mainly from the concepts of feng-shui and herbal medicine. Thus one can see that Cai’s themes of feng-shui: such as the sundial, did not go unnoticed. It was this intriguing incorporation of feng-shui—ancient theologies based on geometry—with modern aesthetics that so fascinated Cai’s audience. But moreover, it was his unique ability to modernise the ancient medium gunpowder that truly sets him apart.

In a conversation with author Ron Rosenbaum during April of last year, Cai revealed that his first encounter with explosives was during his childhood. Growing up, the young Cai heard the artillery firing in neighbouring Taiwan, which sought to maintain its independence from China.

“The uncontrollable nature of gunpowder, along with temporal, spatial and climate changes, must be taken into account for each exhibition plan, each different theme, each different condition; and it must always burn and reveal a different meaning and expression. An extended period of planning gives way to an instant burst of strength and beauty.”² Such was the way Cai described the temperamental medium behind his works, which have themselves quite literally exploded on the art scene.

The unbridled nature of explosives is one of the most enthralling aspects of Cai’s works. This medium, so erratic and volatile, capable of destroying everything in its wake, is somehow reined in by the artist. His pieces lie between control and chaos; of the earthly and otherworldly, and in one moment of eruption, capture intense moments of nature’s power in our universe.

1 “The Art of Cai Guo Qiang”, Artforum International, Summer 1997, p.119.
2 Zhao Yang and Wei Jing Li, Cai Guo Qiang, Guangxi Normal University Press, 2010, p.92