Recent Projects
Cai Guo-Qiang + Kanon: EET
December 20, 2022
Cai Guo-Qiang announced his latest blockchain project in collaboration with Kanon, EET — a chat- and image-based blockchain oracle for communicating with the unseen world through art, powered by smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain. With EET, the artist delves deeper into his ongoing dialogue with the unseen world, furthering the creative potential of the blockchain by harnessing the constraints of smart contracts, with the goal of establishing a unique medium for connecting the seen and unseen worlds.
Tiger Year, Tiger Explosions
April 26, 2022
In 2022, the Year of the Tiger, Cai Guo-Qiang and his daughter Cai Wen-You teamed up to create a gift for an important “tiger” in their life: Cai’s wife and Wen-You’s mother Wu Hong Hong. The interactive Tiger Year, Tiger Explosions NFT, about sharing love between family members, was announced in collaboration with 721Land on Hong Hong’s birthday: April 26th.
After collectors enter their birthdays, different birthdates will trigger different dynamic visual effects of the “golden tiger,” including 9 blessings for collectors whose birth years fall on tiger years and 1 blessing for all other collectors. For collectors of this NFT who were born in a tiger year, owning this work symbolizes good fortune and the receipt of blessings. Once this Year of the Tiger is over, the golden liquid will automatically revert to an image of the golden tiger, symbolizing “the passing of bad luck.”
Collectors’ birth dates will be recorded on the blockchain in perpetuity.
Cai Guo-Qiang: Your Daytime Fireworks
April 22, 2022–June 6, 2022
As Cai Guo-Qiang’s third NFT, Your Daytime Fireworks invites NFT players to embark on a magical journey to explore and participate in Cai’s world of daytime fireworks.
Cai Guo-Qiang: Exploding the Self
September 3, 2021
Following the success of his record-setting debut NFT drop, artist Cai Guo-Qiang is releasing a second NFT in an online sale hosted by TR Lab—a small surprise for the NFT community. The sale, which begins on September 3rd at 9 AM ET, consists of 99 editions of Exploding the Self. Each edition is priced at 999 USD, in an endeavor to make Cai’s latest work accessible to a wider audience. The proceeds from the sale will go towards the Rockbund Art Museum in support of the museum’s education programs.
Cai Guo-Qiang: Odyssey and Homecoming
Museum of Art Pudong, Shanghai
July 8, 2021–March 7, 2022
The Museum of Art Pudong (MAP), located beside the Oriental Pearl television tower in Shanghai, will open its doors to the public for the first time on July 8, 2021. Designed by the renowned Ateliers Jean Nouvel, MAP aspires to become a new landmark of Shanghai’s cultural landscape and a platform for international exchange of arts and culture. For its inaugural program, the museum will present three major exhibitions: Light: Works from Tate’s Collection; Joan Miro. Women, Birds, Stars; Cai Guo-Qiang: Odyssey and Homecoming.
Touring from the Palace Museum in Beijing where it opened last December, Odyssey and Homecoming features 119 of Cai’s signature gunpowder paintings and other works, including his widely acclaimed first-ever VR work Sleepwalking in the Forbidden City. The works in the exhibition represent Cai’s research, exploration, and voyage across the globe, recreating his Individual’s Journey Through Western Art History project for audiences in China.
Cai Guo-Qiang: Transient Eternity
July 14–August 14, 2021
Rockbund Art Museum (RAM), Shanghai, is delighted to announce the official launch of its brand-new digital platform RAM+, partnering with TR Lab, a pioneering platform dedicated to the discovery of NFT art from the world’s leading artists. Ten years after their first collaboration, RAM is honored to once again work with artist Cai Guo-Qiang, who curated its inaugural exhibition in 2010. On the occasion of RAM’s 10th anniversary, Cai has created his first Non-Fungible Token (NFT) project Transient Eternity—101 Ignitions of Gunpowder Paintings. Beginning July 14 at 9 PM (Beijing time, UTC+8), the artwork will be featured in a 48-hour charity auction on the TR Lab platform (trlab.com), on view until August 14, 2021.
Fireflies
Downtown Coral Gables, Florida
February 12–March 14, 2021
When invited to curate and produce Illuminate Coral Gables, Chief curator Lance Fung made two immediate calls: Cai Guo-Qiang and Kiki Smith. Both art luminaries agreed to participate. “Fireflies is one of the most successful and historic public artworks I have been a part of. It is about bringing people together, sharing stories, reinforcing the value of community, all while being a deeply conceptual artwork by embracing different cultures and the actual general public it is meant to serve,” states Fung.
Twenty-seven American-made pedicabs are transformed into kinetic and interactive sculptures through 1000 handmade silk Chinese lanterns and the brilliance of Cai Guo-Qiang. These interactive sculptures are visible in the evening and in all cases do what great art should do – provide an experience. Although the viewer from afar or rider from within may have varying interpretations, Fireflies mai
Photo (left) by John Talley Photography; courtesy of Fung Collaboratives/Illuminate Coral Gables
Odyssey and Homecoming
The Palace Museum, Beijing
December 15, 2020
Cai Guo-Qiang’s exhibition Odyssey and Homecoming at the Forbidden City’s Palace Museum opened to the public on December 15.
Coinciding with the 600-year anniversary of the Forbidden City’s founding, the first-ever solo exhibition of a contemporary artist at the Palace Museum assembles approximately 180 of Cai’s signature gunpowder paintings and other works, from Cai’s ambitious multi-year Individual’s Journey Through Western Art History, as well as his dialogues with Eastern aesthetics, his original passion for painting, and his eternal homeland, the cosmos.
The exhibition is curated by Sir Simon Schama and co-organized by the Beijing Winter Olympics Committee and the Palace Museum. Odyssey and Homecoming will be on view through February 5, 2021.
The Birth of Tragedy
Cognac, France
September 25, 2020
As the coronavirus pandemic gradually stabilizes and the world restores its energy, Cai Guo-Qiang’s daytime explosion event, The Birth of Tragedy, was brought to a worldwide audience from Charente in Cognac, France via livestream on September 25th, 2020 at 3 PM CET / 9AM EDT. Twenty thousand shots of fireworks were launched from 150 oak barrels floating on the river, to honor the universal values of resilience, courage, and hope, and to demonstrate mankind’s heroic faith in life and power after a strenuous feat.
The Birth of Tragedy was commissioned as part of “A World Odyssey,” which marks Hennessy X.O’s 150th anniversary. Cai’s daytime fireworks use exclusively non-toxic, eco-conscious, CE-certified pyrotechnic products.
Left: Photo by Simon Cassanas, courtesy Hennessy