Cai Guo-Qiang

        this spring i went to NYC for the day with one of my good friends, to go to the MOMA. we finished at the MOMA, and rushed over to the Guggenheim, hoping to get in before it closed to see Cai Guo-Qiang's exhibition, I Want to Believe (if you do not know who Cai Guo-Qiang is, i recommend you look at his website because he is not only internationally acclaimed, but an amazing and unique contemporary artist whose work, i believe, could do anyone well to see). we got there with 45 minutes to walk around, which unfortunately was just barely enough time to see it all, but more than enough to blow my mind.

        i'm going to focus on one piece in particular, but just briefly; a few things. first, if you have never been to the Guggenheim, go. i'd never been before, and the setup of the museum alone intrigued me. second, Guo-Qiang is brilliant. there was not one piece that i didn't notice individually, which is quite a feat, considering my short attention span and my nature of hopping around museums to pieces that stand out to me. lastly, while i simply couldn't walk you through every piece of the exhibition, i wouldn't be doing it justice if i didn't at least mention the centerpiece, Inopportune: Stage One (which you can see a video of here -on the NY Guggenheim website).
Inopportune: Stage One is Cai Guo-Qiang's largest installation to date, and simulates a car bombing. the video really says more than i could, so you should watch that. unfortunately, the exhibition closed in may, but let me tell you, nothing can compare to standing on the top floor of the Guggenheim and looking down on this piece.

        my favorite part of the exhibition however, and the piece that has stuck with me is Head On. i'm not sure if this is because of my current fascination with wolves, the strange beauty of the piece, or the sheer size and feel of it. i suspect it is a combination of these and other things. the installation consists of 99 life-sized replica wolves (made of papier mâché, plaster, fiberglass, resin and painted hide) and a glass wall. the wolves start on the ground, in a small pack, and continue, running in rows, gradually lifting off the ground until they are over the viewers' heads, until they hit the glass wall, and come tumbling back down into a pile on the floor. odd as this may sound (or perhaps not odd, for anyone who knows me particularly well, or anyone who has also seen this installation), it is probably one of the most beautiful things i have ever seen. as with any installation, photos do not do it any sort of justice, but here are a couple:


Cai Guo-Qiang's Website
The Guggenheim's information on I Want to Believe (with photos)
Book of Cai Guo-Qiang's work, that i own & recommend

photos: http://www.caiguoqiang.com/

*edit: august 6th
        it was mentioned to me that this installation is much more appreciable after having read Guo-Qiang's intentions for it, and i agree, so for anyone who doesn't want to have to navigate around the Guggenheim's information on the exhibit (although i still recommend you do) here's what it says about Head On:
        "Head On was created for Cai's eponymous solo exhibition at the Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin and exemplifies how local history and culture play a central role within his working process. In this tableau, a pack of 99 life-sized wolves gallops at full force toward a transparent glass wall, leaping through the air in a unified arc, only to collide head on into the unyielding barrier. The wall—first realized to the exact height and thickness of the Berlin Wall—represents society's tendency to search only for the obvious, missing instead what may not be immediately evident but ultimately more dangerous. In Cai's artistic iconography, wolves possess a ferocity and courageousness similar to tigers and achieve heroism through their collective unity. In this installation, however, their cohesiveness leads to their ultimate downfall. Here, through the emblematic imagery of wolves, Cai intends to address the human fallibility of following any collective ideology too blindly and humankind's fate to repeat mistakes unthinkingly. Illusion II—a two-channel video installation that was also included in the Head On exhibition—documents an explosion event of the same title. A German-style house was fabricated by Cai on a lot adjacent to the Anhalter Bahnhof, which was once Berlin's largest train station but almost completely destroyed during World War II. The video's documentation of the small house being decimated by explosives, with the station's ruins in the background, illustrates the artist's ongoing exploration of the contradictions involved in perceptions of beauty and violence. —MICHELLE YUN"