Mentor Questions (Cai Guo-Qiang)

Cai Guo-Qiang is a Chinese artist who creates installations, paintings, and all kinds of art using gunpowder. He currently resides in New York City and continues to make art expressing his love for nature and a world without violence. Many of his pieces express his concern for conservation as well as a beautification of the connotations that gunpowder has. Guo-Qiang was raised in a time where there was a lot of gunpowder involved violence and claims that he uses gunpowder in his art now to show the beauty of this substance that is often weaponized. In his own words, “Why is it important to make these violent explosions beautiful? Because the artist, like an alchemist, has the ability to transform certain energies, using poison against poison, using dirt and getting gold.”

Q1. What’s the first thing you think of when talking about gunpowder?

• I’m reminded of guns or bombs since that’s what they use to for them. Just weapons in general
• I’m reminded of the old canons and how you needed gunpowder to use them, or like old guns and stuff.
• Guns are the first thing that come to mind because it’s in the name, but I also think of fireworks since they require gunpowder.

Q2. What impact does the medium choice have on the context of the art?

• Well in general, the medium might be relevant to the artist, like a collage can be made of important images to the artist, or maybe they’ll have relevance to the piece.
• In the context of Cai Guo-Qiang, it’s pretty relevant since he witnessed a lot of violence caused by gunpowder when he was younger. It brings deeper meaning to his art pieces since they contrast the implications of gunpowder.
• Maybe if it’s like an old art piece, the medium will allow us to know what tools they used to create the piece, or if they used a rare medium you could assume it was an important art piece. I feel like the mediums always have some relevance to how the art should be observed.

Q3. Why might an artist want to create art based on their traumas?

• Maybe to help them cope better? Or to create a better relationship with their trauma?
• To shine light on their troubles because others might relate or feel understood when they see it.
• Maybe to highlight an issue that wasn’t being discussed before?

Q4. Can you think of any examples of movies or art pieces where the artist tries to find beauty in the darker moments of life?

• A lot of Miyazaki films are very beautiful and cute to watch but have side stories of war and violence. I feel like Miyazaki does a good job of finding beauty in the darker moments of life.
• I once watched the movie the Pursuit of Happyness and while most of the movie is really sad I feel like as a whole it’s a beautiful art piece as a film and feels very hopeful. I guess the plot of it doesn’t really fit the idea of “finding beauty in the darker moments,” but rather the movie itself does? I mean in some scenes it does!
• This might be a stretch but, the Titanic was a very dark moment in history but the director chose to make it into a love story- a tragic one nonetheless- but still finds beauty in such a hopeless event. Like when you think of the Titanic you think of Jack and Rose first, and then the ship wreckage that killed many people- it’s like the last question, we’ve made this moment in history more digestible by creating a tragic romance around it.

Q5. How would you transform a bad memory into something beautiful?

• You could take something relevant to the memory and change it’s use like Cai Guo-Qiang. For example, maybe you failed a test? You could take the paper and fold it into an origami swan or something. It wouldn’t change that it didn’t happen, but it would transform it
• Reclaim the memory by creating a new unforgettable memory to outshine the other one.
• You could make a painting that expresses our emotions on the memory. Like venting but on a canvas.