"Do not ever go into Walmart, Home Depot, Eaton's, The Bay, Rona, Winner's and Home Sense to buy a work of art...Guess what? We have ways of finding out..."
Iain Baxter&
Materials: 99 life-sized replicas of wolves and glass
Dimensions: Installation dimensions variable
Concept: With few wolves scattered in the front gallery, all ninety-nine wolves run, gallop, and jump toward the far end of the exhibition hall, where a wall stands. The bravery of the wolves is met head on by the unyielding wall. As the leading wolves go down, many more follow with force and determination. As those in the front fall and pile up, those behind take up their positions.
Documentation/Photography: Hiro Ihara and Mathias Schormann
Cai Guo-Qiang has exploded the accepted parameters of art making in our time. In this particular installation, Cai positions 99 wolves around the museum which were fabricated form China made from paper-mache, plaster, resin and painted hide. The first wolves were hung from the ceiling in a unified arc stretching 140 feet in length. Cai Guo-Qiang's practice draws on a wide variety of symbols, narratives, traditions and materials such as fengshui, Chinese medicine, dragons, roller coasters, computers, vending machines, wildlife, portraiture, non-Han Chinese citizens and their cultures, fireworks and gunpowder. Much of his work draws on Maoist/Socialist concepts for content, especially his gunpowder drawings which strongly reflect Mao Zedong's tenet "destroy nothing, create nothing." (artists work explosive, YANG YINSHI, 2000)
Project No. 196 - Installation
ReplyDelete2006 - Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin, Germany
Title: Head On
Date: August 26—October 15, 2006
Exhibition: Cai Guo-Qiang: Head On
Institution: Deutsche Guggenheim
Location: Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin, Germany
Curators: Friedhelm Hütte and Ariane Grigoteit
Materials: 99 life-sized replicas of wolves and glass
Dimensions: Installation dimensions variable
Concept: With few wolves scattered in the front gallery, all ninety-nine wolves run, gallop, and jump toward the far end of the exhibition hall, where a wall stands. The bravery of the wolves is met head on by the unyielding wall. As the leading wolves go down, many more follow with force and determination. As those in the front fall and pile up, those behind take up their positions.
Documentation/Photography: Hiro Ihara and Mathias Schormann
Terrific piece and a powerful metaphor.
ReplyDeleteCai Guo-Qiang has exploded the accepted parameters of art making in our time. In this particular installation, Cai positions 99 wolves around the museum which were fabricated form China made from paper-mache, plaster, resin and painted hide. The first wolves were hung from the ceiling in a unified arc stretching 140 feet in length. Cai Guo-Qiang's practice draws on a wide variety of symbols, narratives, traditions and materials such as fengshui, Chinese medicine, dragons, roller coasters, computers, vending machines, wildlife, portraiture, non-Han Chinese citizens and their cultures, fireworks and gunpowder. Much of his work draws on Maoist/Socialist concepts for content, especially his gunpowder drawings which strongly reflect Mao Zedong's tenet "destroy nothing, create nothing." (artists work explosive, YANG YINSHI, 2000)
ReplyDelete