cai guo-qiang: inopportune
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cai guo-qiang: inopportune


'inopportune: stage one', 2004 (detail)
image © designboom


chinese artist cai guo-qiang has a history of making works of beauty from violent beginnings;
most famously using gunpowder, fireworks and explosions in his sculptural installations.

currently on show as part of the 17th biennale of sydney is cai's 'inopportune: stage one' (2004),
one of his most challenge and spectacular presentations. the installation is comprised of
nine identical white cars, which appear to be arrested in an animated sequence of explosion.
together the vehicles are frozen in an arc of detonation, blast, launch, tumbling, gravitational return
and rest. the cars are pierced with pulsing rods of light that simultaneously suspend the cars
like wings, penetrating them like blades, signifying a co-existence between violence and beauty.



installation view of cai guo-qiang's 'inopportune: stage one', 2004 at the biennale of sydney
image © designboom



point of detonation...
image © designboom



pulsing rods of light pierce the suspended cars
image © designboom



a vehicle launching into the air...
image © designboom



worm's-eye view of the installation
image © designboom



the frozen arc of vehicles
image © designboom



sequence of tumbling...
image © designboom



vehicle hanging almost perpindiculara to the ground
image © designboom



launching and gravitational return occuring
image © designboom



overturned vehicle
image © designboom



overview of sequence
image © designboom



image © designboom



'inopportune: stage one', 2004
image © designboom



gravitational return to resting
image © designboom



view of installation from point of detonation
image © designboom



nine identical white cars make up the entire installation
image © designboom

cai guo-qiang was born in quanzhou city, fujian province, china in 1957.
he was trained in stage design at the shanghai drama institute, and since then,
his work has often been scholarly and / or politically charged.
in 1999, he was awarded the golden lion at the 48th venice biennale.
he currently lives and works in new york.
andrea db
06.09.10  
4
boooring. a lot of space used to make a visual one liner.
snif   06.09.10
For those who saw cgq's mid-career retrospective at the Guggenheim in which this was the centerpiece hanging from the rotunda, what was apparent was the awesome power evoked by the upended vehicles. Though the strands of light apparently emanating from the cars were rather cartoonish--not at all like "blades" or "wings", they could not take away from the feeling of anticipation. I wonder what a collaboration on this project with Jean Tinguely would have looked like!
mr pink   06.09.10
wow...i liked a lot....
luisefe   06.09.10
No! Modern American art is bullshit, that's a sheer production to order piece and the minimalism is unevenly contrasted by the sheer vastness of the subject matter and sets an undertone of flexing the availability of American resources. In other words by taking a common American privilege(a car) this piece's message is clouded by the artist and losing the ability to move past common American consumerism and expenditure of wealthy Country's privileges. I am an American and it makes me sick to see artists using ready made objects to the extreme like this hanging car motif, being an artist is just as much your idea as well as the production of the physical state of your idea. This is like if a chef wanted to make a gourmet meal for the masses and microwaved three hundred microwavable pizzas pizzas. Yea its food, he had the idea to create it this way, however food that a true chef would make is 100% him and made from scratch. The same thing can be said for using ready made objects in art. The title "artist" has begun to lose meaning and the everyday American who parks a car diagonal in a space is an American modern artist.
CoreyNP12   06.09.10
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