Cai Guo-Quiang: Peasant Da Vincis
An interpretation of Leonardo's machines by the Chinese artist Cai Guo Qiang.
Veduta dell’installazione “Fiaba” di Cai Guo-Qiang al Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnologia Leonardo da VinciNational Museum of Science and Technology Leonardo Da Vinci
On display in 2015 were flying machines, submarines and other symbols of modernity, hand-built by peasants-inventors from different rural areas of China.
Peasant da Vincis
The National Museum of Science and Technology, the Private Incentive by Maria Rosa Azzolina and the Shanghai International Culture Association presented in 2015 the major exhibition of features handcrafted invented by Chinese peasants and collected by Cai Guo-Qiang over the years.
Veduta dell’installazione “Fiaba” di Cai Guo-Qiang al Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnologia Leonardo da VinciNational Museum of Science and Technology Leonardo Da Vinci
Aircraft carrier, aircrafts and submarines
With his characteristic site-specific approach, Cai Guo-Qiang has integrated the architecture of one of the cloisters of the Museum to showcase a selection of the peasants’ large-scale inventions. A twenty-meter high aircraft carrier stood upright in the middle of the cloister's garden as submarines, aircrafts and flying saucers circle playfully around it.
Ignoring the physical laws
These handcrafted raw and amateurish contraptions, based solely on imagination and made without regard to the laws of physics, contrast with the elegant sixteenth century architecture to create an aesthetic of wonder.
Homage to the imagination of self-taught engineers
From 2004 to 2010, Cai Guo-Qiang travelled across nine different provinces in China, meeting and interviewing inventors living in rural areas, investigating the stories of Chinese peasant dreamers. Since then, he has collected their inventions and curated exhibitions to celebrate and showcase their work and stories. Flaunting grass-roots modernity, the exhibition gives center stage to the hand crafted machines, a gesture that pays homage to the imagination of self-taught engineers.
Installation view of Wu Yulu's Robot Factory by Cai Guo-Qiang at the Museum of Science and Technology Leonardo da VinciNational Museum of Science and Technology Leonardo Da Vinci
Cai Guo-Qiang challenges the contemporary art world by raising fundamental questions of museology, art history, and human inventiveness.
Why do we, as humans, feel the need to invent? Why do we make art?
Installation view of Wu Yulu's Robot Factory by Cai Guo-Qiang at the Museum of Science and Technology Leonardo da VinciNational Museum of Science and Technology Leonardo Da Vinci
In conceiving an exhibition with these inventions, the artist celebrates the craftsmanship and creative splendor of human imagination, all the while giving voice to individuality and to collective aspirations for a better life.
Power to the creativity
The creativity of a handful of peasant inventors as well as the power of the exhibition itself were once again showcased leveraging an important moment, marked by the 5th anniversary of the project’s inception, as the international art community’s riveted attention to both the 56th Venice Biennale and Expo Milano 2015.
Cai Guo-Qiang
Cai Guo-Qiang was born in 1957 in Quanzhou City, Fujian Province, China. He was trained in stage design at the Shanghai Theater Academy, and his work has since crossed multiple mediums within art including drawing, installation, video, and performance. While living in Japan from 1986 to 1995, he explored the properties of gunpowder in his drawings, an inquiry that eventually led to the development of his signature explosion events. Cai was awarded the Golden Lion at the 48th Venice Biennale in 1999, the 20th Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize in 2009, and the Praemium Imperiale in 2012. Additionally, he was also among the five artists honored with the first U.S. Department of State Medal of Arts award. He also served as Director of Visual and Special Effects for the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.
Solo exhibitions and projects
On the Roof: Transparent Monument, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Nueva York, 2006 y su retrospectiva I Want to Believe, que se inauguró en el Museo Solomon R. Guggenheim, Nueva York en 2008 y luego viajó entre el Museo Nacional de Arte de China de Beijing en el mismo año y el Guggenheim Bilbao en 2009. En 2011, Cai apareció con la exposición individual Saraab en el Mathaf: Museo Árabe de Arte Moderno en Doha, Qatar, la primera en un país del Medio Oriente. En 2012, el artista participó en tres exposiciones individuales: Sky Ladder en el Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Los Ángeles, Spring en el Museo de Arte de Zhejiang en Hangzhou y A Clan of Boats en la Fundación Faurschou en Copenhague.
Cai Guo-Qiang: Da Vincis do Povo viajó a Brasil en 2013 en Brasilia, São Paulo y Río de Janeiro. En el mismo año, Cai creó One Night Stand (Aventure d'un Soir), un evento explosivo para la Nuit Blanche, un festival de arte y cultura organizado por la ciudad de París. Sus exposiciones individuales The Ninth Wave e Impromptu se abrieron en Shanghai Power Station of Art y Fundación Proa en 2014. Sus exposiciones más recientes son: There and Back Again, que se inauguró en julio de 2015 en el Museo de Arte de Yokohama y Penglai/Hōrai en Echigo. -Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Tsumari Satoyama, Niigata. Cai Guo-Qiang actualmente vive y trabaja en Nueva York.
Private Incentive by Maria Rosa Azzolina
Larys Frogier director of RAM Museum Shanghai (curator of the exhibition)
Rockbund Art Museum Shanghai (RAM Shanghai)
Shanghai International Culture Association
Photo Credits: Private Incentive Milano/Beijing
