cai guo qiang: 'I want to believe'

‘inopportune: stage two’, 2004 (© solomon r. guggenheim foundation new york. photo: david heald)

the guggenheim museum in new york opened their retrospective exhibition of chinese artist cai guo-qiang last week. entitled ‘I want to believe’, the exhibition features a number of site specific installations that took the artist and a large team over a month to prepare. the main piece, ‘inopportune: stage one’ fills the central atrium of the museum with a series of nine cars exploding with colourful neon lights in sequence. the museum’s director, thomas krens, described the piece as ‘the best artistic transformation of the frank lloyd wright space we’ve ever seen. make sure to check out the video of the installation process and the series of photos on the guggenheim’s site, or see the show in person until may 28th.

the art newspaper’s interview with cai quo-qiang

‘head-on’ 2006 (© solomon r. guggenheim foundation new york. photo: david heald)

‘borrowing your enemy’s arrows’, 1998 (© solomon r. guggenheim foundation new york. photo: david heald)

‘inopportune: stage one’, 2004 (© solomon r. guggenheim foundation new york. photo: david heald)

‘an arbitrary history: river’ [installation view at the musée d’art contemporain de lyon], 2001 (© blaise adilon)

‘reflection-a gift from iwaki’ [installation view at shawinigan space, national gallery of canada, 2006], 2004 (© national gallery of canada)

‘fetus movement II: project for extraterrestrials no. 9’, 1992 (photo: masanobu moriyama)

‘drawing for the century with mushroom clouds: project for the 20th century’ [detail], 1995-96 (photo: hiro ihara)

‘drawing for asia-pacific economic cooperation: ode to joy’, 2002 (photo: shizhe chen)