Reflections on Cai Guoqiang.

"The works made are like fireworks in the sky. What has not been realized is only the night. These are all the works of an artist, and they are the whole of his life. The problem is that people look up at the night sky to see gorgeous fireworks, not at night. " ? -"Cai Guoqiang: Actually, I think so."

We can see a very romantic man on the ladder of his works. The documentary "Ladder" mentioned that the whole creation lit a ray of light and went straight to the horizon visible to the naked eye, representing all life on earth and the whole world, and sending greetings to unknown civilizations. Inside, I can feel his simple romance as an individual. Why should a person talk alone in the distance? The awkwardness reflected in his behavior is no different from that of thousands of families flying in the sky, but it is a moving reason. What does he want to bring? Why do humans talk to unknown civilizations with a technology that appeared in the Spring and Autumn Period in China? This is also my favorite part. Cai reflected a kind of reflection in Ladder. What human beings need to reflect on through appearances is their own hearts. The beautiful scene produced by blasting is only a flash in the pan, but as an event, it is a reflection on the development of human civilization to this moment.

In Cai Guoqiang's art, we often give people an inherent impression: fire. This illusory fire is actually easy to give people an illusion-it will make people pay more attention to the randomness of their works, which is most directly reflected in many audiences who have no artistic experience: "I can do it." So, today I will start with the intention of "fire" and talk about my views on Cai Guoqiang's art. Gunpowder is an indispensable part of Cai Guoqiang's art. Cai studied in Japan in his early years and was influenced by many Japanese schools. In this school, their general feature is to choose some natural objects to reshape to express their views. Material expression is to transcend material. In Cai's art, we can see his self-exploration and concern for all mankind.

In his Biography of Cai Guoqiang: Actually, I think so. We can learn about Cai Guoqiang's superstition of "Feng Shui". Feng Shui, in fact, is now explained as the gas field between man and the environment, or the relationship between man and the universe. This concept of Feng Shui runs through the whole process of Cai Guoqiang's artistic creation. Personally, I think he is building a field of dramatic art. Cai's art needs an event-based way of viewing. In short, he has a clear time, place, characters, causes and effects, and he can also use the now very popular propaganda form-live broadcast as the starting point to examine his art. In the process of artistic creation, he will take into account different local cultures, different events and artistic expressions. As fireworks, he also has many experimental forms, such as blasting, smoke generation, transmission and so on. Therefore, in every event, although it is the visual element of fire as a whole, by extension, it is the whole artistic visual language system constructed by Cai Guoqiang.

However, in such a localized creation, the artist did not instill all the concepts behind the work into every viewer, not because he touched the threshold of art, but because he put the artistic attitude very low, making art live between obscurity and popularization. Fireworks, as a popular festival form, eliminate the natural barrier between artists. As can be seen from the documentary "Ladder", after the burning, the cheers of the crowd were "beautiful", some people said. From Cai's own creation, we can see that Chen Danqing described him as "the only contemporary artist in China who I know (and admire) and has a huge knowledge system of western art". Actually, it's not. Although Cai has settled in the United States, he is still from Quanzhou. Nowadays, in the name of "reviving Chinese culture", many people still only scratch the surface of China elements. Cai Guoqiang is an embedded expression of China culture not only in the choice of intention, but also in his thinking and expression. Even he doesn't care about China culture subjectively, but is a metaphor and heroism handed down by China for thousands of years. Just as he is an artist, he is also willing to take a step back and help China Olympic Games design the opening ceremony and the 70th National Day party. At the same time, it is also a very rare artist who is based on the world but enlarges his hometown. After three experiments in Japan and Britain, he finally chose to return to his hometown Quanzhou to make his iconic artistic creation for his grandmother and hometown folks. This is an example of China artists' self-persistence, and it is also the direction I need to stick to.

Generally speaking, what Cai Guoqiang has brought me is a kind of rural romance, a kind of restrained and unrestrained, and a kind of love for "home". Expressing our views in our own language system is the road to the future that we need to constantly seek.