EXHIBITED:

Cai Guo-Qiang: Hanging Out in the Museum, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, November 21, 2009 - February 21, 2010

ILLUSTRATED:

Cai Guo-Qiang: Hanging Out in the Museum, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, 2009, color illustrated, pp. 174-175

Cai Guo-Qiang is perhaps the most international of contemporary Chinese artists and he is regularly hailed in the press as a global artist. He was the first Chinese artist to hold a solo exhibition at the prestigious Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. The groundbreaking exhibition 'Cai Guo-Qiang: I Want to Believe' also travelled to Beijing for the 2008 Olympics and then to the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain in 2009. Running for a total of 2 years from 2008 to 2009, it attracted the most visitors ever for a Guggenheim solo exhibition, and placed Cai firmly in the ranks of the foremost contemporary artists. Following this enormous success, the Taipei Fine Arts Museum held a retrospective of Cai's work titled "Cai Guo-Qiang: Hanging Out in the Museum" which again broke all attendance records. The present work "Furious Tiger Going Down a Mountain" was exhibited in the Taipei exhibition.

Cai is unique among Chinese contemporary artists in that he has completely broken from tradition in the medium and mode of expression he uses in his art. As a young artist he was immersed in the traditional ink and brush style of Chinese painting. His father was a skilled painter and was firmly locked into tradition, hoping his son would follow in his footsteps. However, Cai found traditional ink and brush painting to be too limiting and restrictive, not giving him enough scope to express the internal dialogues in his head. He then dabbled in oil painting, the traditional medium of Western art. But he also found this unsatisfying and unsatisfactory for communicating his inner thoughts and emotions.

Cai was born in Quanzhou, Fujian Province in China in 1957. Quanzhou was formally, a center of fireworks production in China and Cai grew up surrounded by factories from which the smell of gunpowder constantly permeated. Also, at this time there was constant conflict between the Kinmen Island of Taiwan and Mainland China, so the air was filled with gunpowder smoke. So, Cai was fascinated with gunpowder from a very early age. As an emotional, creative and sensitive youngster he was drawn to both the destructive and constructive power of gunpowder. It can destroy buildings and lives, but it can also produce wonderful firework displays.

Searching for a medium that could release him and allow him to express himself freely, Cai began to incorporate different materials in his art, including porcelain, Chinese herbal medicine, kites, bamboo rafts, fengshui and of course, gunpowder. He also tried different methods to find creativity with traditional ink and oil painting. Obsessed with natural forces and their ability to profoundly effect their environment, he tried to harness some of them to create his art. He used a fan on wet paint to create typhoon effects, fire to blister it, and a dove to walk across his canvas. However, it was gunpowder that finally set him free. He was drawn to its spontaneity, the powerful release of energy, the unknown and unpredictable result of using it. Over many years he has perfected his techniques for using this destructive material to produce both stunning explosion events and gunpowder drawings of which "Furious Tiger Going Down a Mountain" is one.

Cai's medium and method is but one aspect of his art. His art is complex and unique, flowing from a very expressive, energetic and creative mind, which is a product of his origins, his experiences, his beliefs and his sensitivities. At a very early age Cai experienced the duality present in life. The concept of duality is central to the Chinese life-experience, the ying and the yang being one of the most known expressions of this. Life is complicated, and we constantly have different forces pulling and tugging us in different directions. Cai faced this dilemma with the two most important people in his early life, his grandmother who raised him, and his father.

His father was imbued with Confucianism, which teaches moderation and personal responsibility. A follower of tradition, he was a constrained man not given to overt displays of emotion either in his life or in his artworks, in which he was an accomplished traditional ink and brush painter. Cai's grandmother on the other hand was deeply immersed in Taoism the traditional religious belief in Southern China. Taoism is very much removed from Confucianism, as it stresses the importance of freeing the mind and unleashing creativity. It also emphasizes the duality of the universe and the ying and the yang that Cai successfully incorporates in gunpowder. He often states that his creations link 'the seen and unseen worlds'. Taoism beliefs have had an enormous influence on him, and he draws freely from its world of superstition, mythology and cosmology. He has said that Taoism has allowed him to enter a time tunnel, to go beyond the real world of social systems and boundaries, to free himself and escape all restraints.

Cai also literally escaped from his society. As a young artist he first moved to Shanghai, but realized that to be truly free, he had to escape from his culture. He first moved to Japan in 1986, and then the USA in 1995. He was following in the great tradition of artists such as James Joyce, who could only truly unlock their creativity when they were truly separated from their past-life. It is this escaping and fleeing that has also enabled Cai to become a universal and global artist. His works don't just speak to one culture, they are borderless creations speaking to universal truths that are at once recognized and grasped by a worldwide audience. His ideas, thoughts, feelings, and expressions transcend cultures and speak to the heart and intellect of all humanity.

"Furious Tiger Going Down a Mountain" is a powerful and energetic exploration of the duality present in modern day life. Wild animals such as tigers, wolves, eagles and dragons play a major role in Taoism. They represent the unbridled and dangerous energy inside each one of us. A tiger is a symbol of bravery, courage, and power, but is also a symbol of ferocity, destructiveness, and brutality. Cai's family was in New York when 9/11 occurred and this terrible destructive attack was to have a profound and deep impression on him and his art. A sincere, enthusiastic, and hopeful person, he was devastated by man's ability to destroy. From this time on he incorporates wild animals into his works symbolizing the latent violence and malevolence in human beings, and at the same time realizing the beauty, power and energy that is also inside each of us. This duality, this complexity, is something we need to be aware of if we are to harness it in the right way.

"Furious Tiger Going Down a Mountain" was produced in 2005 at the same time as his renowned installation 'Inopportune: Stage Two' was produced. In that work, nine tigers are depicted in life-size models with numerous arrows embedded in their bodies. The work is based on a 12th century Chinese story of a man killing a tiger with his bare hands. Killing a tiger with bare hands is a heroic act, but bombarding a tiger with arrows is somehow tragic, demeaning and soulless and serves as an inherent comment on man's savagery. However, "Furious Tiger Going Down a Mountain" depicts the full magnificent force and energy of a powerful animal as it comes down a mountain. The work is truly atmospheric as the power and beauty of the tiger is captured through the use of gunpowder. Cai's works are often likened to traditional ink and brush paintings, the forerunners of abstract art, and this work is no exception as the full beauty of Cai's creativity is captured.