Cai Guoqiang's character events.

After 1990s, Cai Guoqiang's creation entered a peak period. Few artists can compare with the number and scale of his works. Cai's main achievement is his unique thinking of deepening the cultural dialogue between the East and the West under the artistic background of the 1990s. This is of great enlightening significance to the development of contemporary artistic concepts.

Playing with fire in the name of romance

Recently, Cai Guoqiang, an internationally renowned China artist living in the United States, launched his new work in new york. This splendid work composed of fireworks lights up the night sky in new york Central Park, which is a blessing to the city and its destiny after the second anniversary of the "9. 1 1" incident.

In order to celebrate the establishment of new york Central Park 150 and commemorate the second anniversary of the "9. 1 1" incident, Cai Guoqiang performed his works in new york Central Park on September 15, 2003, expressing his blessings for the city and its destiny.

Fireworks for new york

This work is carried out in three stages. First of all, the "beacon tower" consisting of a fire core 600 feet high and 30 feet wide kicked off. Five "beacon towers" moved from the south of Central Park to the north. Each fire cone lasts for 25 seconds and appears in turn at intervals of 5 seconds. The five positions that the fire cone passes through will be clearly visible within 5 seconds. With a total length of * * * 45 seconds, these fire wicks carry messages from ancient times.

In the second stage, "Nimbus" is the focus of this work. Three holes with a diameter of 350 feet formed by fire and light first appeared horizontally in the air, and the fourth and last hole with a diameter of 65,438+0,000 feet appeared vertically above the reservoir. Different nimbus appeared in three times, from the initial pursuit to the expansion of the second part, and then to the final flash. Each fireworks bomb is embedded with a computer chip to control the exact time and location of the explosion designed by the artist. The total length of the work is ***77 seconds, which is not only a symbol of renewal, eternity, blessing, perfection and perfection, such as [font ID = markstyle = color: # ee6600; BACKGROUND-COLOR: yellow] Cai Guoqiang [/font] himself said it was "an amulet worn on Manhattan's chest".

Finally, more than 100 signals were sprayed into the air as the ending, and the "sky lantern" slowly floated down to illuminate the whole central park, forming a 120 second "white night". The park is wrapped in light, showing a wonderful and strange sight. Central Park, which is always dark at night, will suddenly light up in this short moment, just like the film was shot in Manhattan. The "light wheel" shows the connection between the site and history, and it is also a blessing to the fate of the city.

Kyle Poirot's messenger

1995 On the opening day of the Venice Biennale, Cai Guoqiang sailed into the Irish Grand Canal with a China fishing boat sailing from his hometown of Quanzhou. Fishing boats have been moored in Venice throughout the exhibition. This work also includes a vending machine filled with Chinese herbal medicines.

Cai Guoqiang named his work "Bringing what Kyle Poirot forgot back to Venice". The inspiration of this work comes from the historical event that Kyle Poirot returned to Venice from Quanzhou. Quanzhou is the hometown of Cai Guoqiang, so this work is also a commemoration of this event. With the increasingly sharp contemporary art, this poetic work appeared in the famous Biennale, which was romantic and eye-catching, and Cai Guoqiang also began his dazzling career.

Gunpowder carnival

1993, Cai Guoqiang, who lived in Japan, returned to China and performed his explosive work "The Great Wall Extends by 10,000 meters-the plan of aliens" in Jiayuguan. At the end of the Great Wall, the explosion point of the explosive extends to the desert, parallel to the nearby railway tracks. When he lit the fuse, flames billowed into the sky, moving in parallel with the speeding train-starting from 1989, Cai Guoqiang launched his "Dialogue with Aliens" series. This is a series of large-scale explosion plans, the purpose of which is to send a signal to the universe and find a dialogue between the earth and other planets.

His works are often huge in scale, reaching tens of thousands of square meters or more than ten kilometers; In production, hundreds of people are often used to plan work. However, these works are not to stand on the earth, but to look at the earth from the universe.

200 1, Cai Guoqiang was the multimedia large-scale landscape art fireworks show of Shanghai APEC conference planning, which initiated the China government to combine official diplomatic activities with contemporary art.

Litigation of rent collection agency

1In June, 1999, Cai Guoqiang was invited by the planner Schzeman to participate in the Venice Biennale, and exhibited the conceptual art scheme "Venice Renting House". Nine sculptors were invited from China to produce Rent Collection House, the most representative group sculpture in China during the Cultural Revolution, and won the Golden Lion Award, the highest prize in the Biennale.

After the news came, the authors who participated in the creation of the sculpture "Renting House" reacted strongly, thinking that "Renting House in Venice" seriously violated their copyright. Then, on May 25th, 2000, the Propaganda Department of Chongqing Municipal Committee and sichuan fine arts institute jointly held a press conference on the copyright of Rent Collection House, and Luo Zhongli, the president of sichuan fine arts institute, announced that he had begun to sue the organizing committee, exhibition host Zeeman and winner Cai Guoqiang of the Italian Venice Biennale.

However, the legal profession not only has different views on this matter, but also has encountered difficulties in the execution procedure of bringing a lawsuit. The art world has also argued about the Venice rent-collecting house in Cai Guoqiang. Some people praised it as a masterpiece of post-modernism, while others called it post-colonialism peddling the art of the Cultural Revolution.

In this regard, Harold Schzeman, the curator of this Biennale, said in an interview with a reporter from Taiwan Province's CANS Art Newspaper: "Of course, this work did not infringe the copyright, otherwise andy warhol and many other artists also infringed the copyright. Cai's work is not a copy of Renting House, but a reinterpretation of its sculpture value, which has no commercial interests. I've always wanted to show the rent collection since 1972. In fact, one of the original authors of Rent Collection House also participated in the production of Venice works. Up to now, nobody has contacted me except Cai Guoqiang. Generally speaking, copyright is an open issue in modern art. Cai Guoqiang did not violate the copyright law, because he showed an ongoing creation, not a copy of this great work, and these sculptures were not sold, but were gradually destroyed during the exhibition. "

Fei Dawei, a French art planner, explains Cai Guoqiang's art in this way: Cai Guoqiang's expression is chaotic, illogical and inflated. At the same time, his works are often ambiguous and multi-methodological. Sometimes he uses poems and stories, sometimes he uses a lyrical feeling, and sometimes he uses a joke to compose his works. He uses ideas, but what he does is not conceptual art. He uses the diversity and disorder of methods to explore the deep chaos of the world and look for an organic whole world view behind chaos. Here, communication in any world is free, relaxed and humorous. Although the traditional form has become fragments, we can still feel people's pursuit of the universe as a whole through the fragments, so he is more like a poetic and informal romantic.

From February 22nd to May 28th, 2008, the Guggenheim Museum will officially exhibit Cai Guoqiang's "I Want to Believe" personal retrospective exhibition, which will show Cai Guoqiang's contribution to contemporary international art in form and concept through four media: gunpowder sketch, explosion design, installation and social activities, and more than 80 personal works selected from global public or private collections. This time, the curator removed all the masterpieces including Picasso, and held an exhibition for Cai Guoqiang with the space of the whole museum, which is also the largest solo exhibition of China artists in the American Art Museum so far. After its unveiling in new york, the exhibition will also tour Beijing and other places. During the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, as a part of the Cultural Olympics, the retrospective exhibition of Cai Guoqiang art will be exhibited in the China Art Museum. In 2009, it was exhibited in the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao.

At 20: 00 pm Beijing time on August 8, the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games was held in the National Stadium.

Sun Zhengping: In the shocking sound, footsteps composed of fireworks passed through Tiananmen Square and headed for the Bird's Nest.

Zhou Tao: This means that China's dream of pursuing the Olympic Games is being realized step by step.

Sun Zhengping: Seven years ago, when the Olympic bid report was handed over to the Olympic Organizing Committee, Zhongzhou Road, three distinctive landmarks, not only embodied Beijing's three Olympic concepts, but also connected a city's yesterday and today.

2008 Olympic Games

Fireworks "historical footprint" began to set off 29 huge fireworks footprints in the direction of "Bird's Nest".

Flame, shining in the sky. "Cool"-this is the only definition given to the opening ceremony by Zhang Yimou before. He didn't break his word, relying on the fireworks of Cai Guoqiang's whole performance to "escort", and this opening ceremony feast won the peak glory in audio-visual and plot.

China invented fireworks to form 29 footprints, symbolizing the 29th Olympic Games going to China and Beijing. Choosing Beijing's central axis as the route is equivalent to crossing the ancient history of China. From the Imperial Capital to the Bird's Nest, from history to modern times, the imagination of these 29 fireworks footprints is second. The key is that it is shocking enough to occupy real space and historical space.

Fireworks were set off at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games, like a huge step along the central axis of Beijing, from Yongdingmen to the National Stadium, and 26 discharge points were set off in turn. The discharge time of each discharge point does not exceed 10 second, and the total discharge time is 1 minute.

The total number of fireworks in the main stadium "Bird's Nest" is about 15000, and the total number of fireworks in each position reaches 33866. The public can enjoy the overall discharge effect in front of the TV, or watch fireworks on the edge of the Fourth Ring Road.

Cow, this footprint is enough! At least, our imagination has not lost to Athens.

Typhoon Morakot hit Taiwan Province Province hard. Cai Guoqiang, a contemporary artist, is deeply concerned about the disaster area and donated his treasured blasting sketch Wolf: German Guggenheim Sketch in Berlin to Yahoo! Chimo Auction Co., Ltd. held a charity sale on the website from September 3 to September 5, 2009. All the proceeds from the charity sale will be donated to World Vision for flood relief in Morakot, Taiwan Province Province, and they will work with all the people in Taiwan Province Province for disaster relief and reconstruction.

After the Morakot flood, new york Cai Guoqiang Studio heard that the disaster in Taiwan Province Province was serious, and immediately expressed its willingness to donate works for charity sale. Two major natural disasters in Taiwan Province Province, Cai Guoqiang generously helped. This time, the Wolf: A Sketch of German Guggenheim in Berlin donated by Cai Guoqiang for Morakot Flood Charity Sale was a work in 2005, with a size of 97× 124 cm. All the proceeds from the three-day public auction will be donated to World Vision Taiwan Province Morakot Flood Relief Society. The donation scope of the charity sale will cover the reconstruction projects urgently needed in six disaster areas: emergency rescue, resettlement service and emergency shelter account, child care, adoption plan for children in disaster areas, short-and medium-term relay housing construction plan, and sustainable community construction (including tribal primary schools).

Previously, after the 9.21earthquake, Cai Guoqiang donated his work "The Brand of 9.21"for charity sale in 2000. On a 12-screen masterpiece with a height of 200 cm and a length of 92 1 cm, Cai Guoqiang described the 90-second seismogram track measured in Sun Moon Lake, the epicenter of the 92 1 earthquake in Taiwan Province Province, and exploded it at the charity sale site, reappearing the moment when the sky was about to fall, leaving a historical memory for this pain that will never disappear with art.

This work, entitled "The Brand of September 21", was immediately sold for charity at the blasting creation site, with a starting price of 300,000 yuan. Finally, the collector surnamed Chen in Taiwan won the bid at a high price of 2.3 million yuan, and all the proceeds were donated to disaster relief.

Cai Guoqiang said that disaster relief and reconstruction is a long road, and only by uniting everyone's love can we exert a longer-term impact. Yahoo! Qimo Auction cooperates with Cai Guoqiang, hoping to provide hope and motivation for future victims through the United strength of the online community!

Fireworks party for the 60th anniversary of National Day

As the chief designer and director of the fireworks display at the 60th anniversary party of the National Day, Cai Guoqiang once again showed the world an amazing visual feast. On June 3rd, 2009, I returned to my hometown of Quanzhou, Cai Guoqiang, and told my hometown media that "I scored 99 points for the fireworks at the National Day party".

Speaking of behind the scenes, he said that in order to reflect the shocking effect of the opening of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, he specially hired a large-scale engineering equipment from a Beijing company to enter the site in January in advance. One is responsible for sketching railway tracks, and the other is responsible for bombing trains. * * * has more than 30,000 bombing spots, and the cost is really high. Also, before the fireworks were set off, the relevant departments arranged to transfer the "old, weak and sick" residents near Tiananmen Square, and they really stuffed earplugs, and an ambulance was parked at the door to prevent accidents; In the plan, they began to plan that when the fireworks finally ended, thousands of flares would be fired in the air to make the Tiananmen area look like daylight. The central leadership agreed, but the Beijing public security department stopped it according to law on the grounds that "military materials are not for civilian use" and had to give up.

It is reported that the director group of the National Day Gala has declared three Guinness World Records for curtain fireworks: the single fireworks display area is the largest in the world; The number of ignition times of a single fireworks is the highest in the world; The variety of single fireworks display is the highest in the world. The application is under examination and approval.

Cai Guoqiang reached the peak of his personal creation with the fireworks display on National Day night. 60 beautiful fireworks "Peace Pigeons" flew from Jianguomen to Fuxingmen; Three screen fireworks paintings, Splendid Rivers and Mountains, Snowy Road and beautiful homeland, are the highlights of the party.

Cai Guoqiang introduced that the National Day fireworks took the screen fireworks painting in the center of Tiananmen Square as the core, interspersed with innovative aerial digital patterns and ground fireworks calligraphy, and formed two U-shaped high school and low altitude fireworks positions around Tiananmen Gate, which were left and right, from near to far, multi-level and three-dimensional, and built a panoramic fireworks art scene.

Cai Guoqiang was very satisfied with the fireworks display at the National Day party. "Seeing the efforts of so many people, I can't judge that it is a personal work of art, so I give it 99 points."

After the Beijing Olympic Games last year, Cai Guoqiang rushed back to Quanzhou, his hometown, and recreated the 29 big footprints of the opening ceremony with gunpowder in the lobby on the first floor of Quanzhou Evening News Building. In this regard, Cai Guoqiang said that the trip to Quanzhou was in a hurry, and he would have the opportunity to come to Quanzhou again to explode a gunpowder painting of 60 "doves of peace".

Fireworks blew up the amazing ladder on Yuhui Island.

201May At 4: 50 am on June 5/KLOC-0, Cai Guoqiang, a world-famous artist from Quanji, lit a 500-meter "ladder" in Hui Gui Island, Quangang District, Quanzhou, his hometown, and talked with the universe at dawn, realizing his dream for nearly 20 years.

I prepared the "ladder" at 2 1, which was a gift from Cai Guoqiang to Quanzhou, my hometown.

First, lay a rope ladder with a height of 500 meters and a width of 5.5 meters on the ground, and pull it up with the help of a tether ball to rise vertically into the night sky. After the ignition, it seems that a golden fireworks ladder suddenly rose. In 2002 and 2005.

Muhara said that he submitted two "Olympic Footprint" plans to the Olympic Torch Relay Center.

August 8(th), 2008

Cai Guoqiang created 29 footprints along the central axis with fireworks at the opening ceremony.

August 8(th), 2008

Mu Yuan's idea of finding big footprints is the same as the "Olympic Footprints" scheme he submitted.

20081October

At Mu Yuan's request, the Torch Relay Center of the Olympic Organizing Committee wrote back to him, saying that he had indeed received his plan.

At the end of 2008,

Mu Yuan said that he had called Cai Guoqiang Art Studio to inquire about this matter.

August 20 10

Xi Intermediate People's Court filed a case on this matter.

With the "big footprint" at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games, Cai Guoqiang, one of the "four great returnees" of contemporary art in China, expanded his influence beyond the art world. Recently, however, Mu Yuan, an artist from Xi, questioned the creativity of "big footprints" from his own works. Yesterday, the reporter learned that Cai Guoqiang copied the "Olympic Footsteps" plan he submitted to the Olympic Organizing Committee, and the Angolan artist Mu Yuan took Cai Guoqiang to court. Xi Intermediate People's Court has filed a case for this. However, Cai Guoqiang said that he was not clear about this matter, and would not respond until he knew about it.

One is in the sky and the other is on the ground.

At the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, Cai Guoqiang let 29 footprints bloom in the form of fireworks over the central axis of Beijing. However, Mu Yuan, an artist from An, said that in 2002 and 2005, he submitted the "Introduction of Olympic Footprint-Great Earth Art Plan" to the Olympic Organizing Committee, which also included the theme elements such as Footprint, 29th Olympic Games, Tiananmen Square and Olympic Sports Center, and got a reply from the Olympic Organizing Committee. Mu Yuan said that he mentioned 29 footprints symbolizing the 29th Olympic Games in his proposal, and also proposed a footprint route through Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City and the Olympic Sports Center. Cai Guoqiang also said that its 29 fireworks footprints symbolized the 29th Olympic Games, and the footprints walked step by step along the central axis of Beijing to the "Bird's Nest". Therefore, Muyuan thinks that Cai Guoqiang's footprint creativity has copied his own creativity. "The theme of my work is to be implemented on the ground, and the materials of footprints are in various forms," Mu Yuan said.

Creative similarity never leads to collapse.

Mu Yuan said that the similarity between Cai Guo's strong footprint and his own "Olympic footprint" can never be a crash, because he has been engaged in artistic creation with the theme of "footprint", and Cai Guoqiang, as the chief designer of the visual special effects art of the opening and closing ceremonies of the Beijing Olympic Games, will definitely summarize all the plans for him. "Cai Guoqiang took advantage of his position to steal my creativity."

Mu Yuan pointed out that since the end of 2008, he sent relevant documents to Cai Guoqiang's Beijing studio, but there was no response. In March 2009, a warning letter was sent to Cai Guoqiang on the Internet, and there was no response. With the approaching of the two-year validity period of civil litigation, he filed a complaint with the court. At present, the Xi Intermediate People's Court has filed a case for this.

Mu Yuan said that he asked the court to order Cai Guoqiang to stop all activities of publicity, exhibition and auction with the idea of "footprints" and publicly apologize in the media.

Know the situation and then reply.

Regarding the idea of a big footprint of the Olympic Games, Cai Guoqiang said in an interview with this reporter, "I wanted to make a big footprint of the Olympic Games in the early 1990s. The footprints on the central axis not only conform to the Olympic theme, but also conform to my artistic concept and alien plan. In fact, they have found a win-win situation. "

Assistant Cai Guoqiang said that Cai had been abroad, and he didn't know what Muyuan said, until he knew it clearly.

The reporter contacted the Beijing Olympic City Development Promotion Association (a non-profit organization registered with the Beijing Civil Affairs Bureau after the dissolution of BOCOG) to ask if Mu Yuan had received the "Olympic footsteps" in that year, and was told that the staff had changed after the dissolution of BOCOG in August 2009. China's copyright law protects the expression of works, not the protection of ideas or creativity. But usually expression and creativity are linked. Specific to the case of "footprint", it is difficult to separate its expression from creativity, depending on the specific details of the scheme provided.