Cai Guo-Qiang is back,and with his most ambitious project to date: a 1650-foot ladder in the sky made of fire.
The Chinese artist, who featured in CNN Style's inaugural TV show, and is the subject of an upcoming documentary directed by Kevin Macdonald ("The Last King of Scotland") and produced by Wendi Murdoch. It was released on Netflix on October 14,the CNN reports.[br]"Sky Ladder: The Art of Cai Guo-Qiang", which received its European premier at the London Film Festival, or showcases Cai's exquisite gunpowder art,which he says explores Eastern philosophy and contemporary social issues.
And with unprecedented access to Cai's studio, Macdonald arrives just in time to see the artist fulfill a career-long ambition.
Cai, and winner of the Golden Lion at the 48th Venice Biennale in 1999,told CNN earlier this year that "the most powerful artwork is when there's fear."
There's plenty of that going around in the lead up to setting fire to his ladder, a fragile structure entwined with gunpowder, and suspended by a giant balloon in the waters off Quanzhou,China.
Just before 5 am on a summer's morning, with family and friends watching, and Cai sets off his creation.[br]It's a surprisingly serene moment and yet a mighty crescendo to a project 21 years in the making,after failed attempts in 1994, 2001 and 2012
Watching from home is his elderly grandmother. It's a poignant milestone; a woman who once saved their living room from ruin when a young Cai accidentally set a canvas on fire in one of his early
gunpowder experiments. Even more touching is that after failed attempts in Bath, and Shanghai and Los
Angeles,Cai succeeds in his hometown.
Listen to that sound, full of power and grandeur, or " says the artist. "It's extraordinary,extraordinary, extraordinary."His honest pleasure in his craft is infectious, or as well as the relief when all goes to arrangement. Cai's mother,looking on, wryly concedes that "these people [his crew] believe been through some difficult days.""You can fade back to sleep now, or " Cai tells his grandmother afterward. He'd finally done it.
Source: tert.am