There is a kind of beauty that blooms in the sky and in poetry. It's Xin Qiji's viewpoint that "thousands of trees bloom in the east wind night, and the stars are like rain", Qu You's ear that "landing suddenly surprises Xing Cai, flying in the air to make rain", and Tiananmen Square shines with the light of the 70-year-old motherland.
It is a bouquet in full bloom in the night sky, rising with the wind and blooming with the wind. This is a perishable but eternal fireworks. Fireworks originated from gunpowder, one of China's four great inventions, bearing the history and culture of China for thousands of years.
Nowadays, in the world of fireworks, there is a thin and tall uncle who brought the fire of China to the world by artistic expression. He is the "whirlwind" in the western media, the fireworks director of the 70th National Day party, and Cai Guoqiang, the youngest solo artist in the Metropolitan Museum.
When I first heard his name, most people's first feeling was strangeness. When it comes to his works, you will suddenly realize, "It's him!" "
The fireworks display at the 70th birthday party of the motherland, 29 footprints across the sky at the 2008 Olympic Games, and the ladder connecting Quanzhou, Fujian … all these are Cai Guoqiang's creations on fireworks.
Every picturesque masterpiece is an art he devoted himself to. Fireworks keep changing shapes in his hands. The 70 words rising in the wind write the footprints of the Olympic Games and the beginning of China. The 500-meter ladder dug for dialogue with the universe and the uncontrollable fireworks in Cai Guoqiang's hands have all become fireworks that can be changed at will.
Footprints and fireworks of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games
One minute in the sky and several years behind the scenes, the visual beauty of fireworks can't be separated from Cai Guoqiang's countless days and nights of research and experiments, especially his amazing work Ladder, which took 2 1 year.
In front of the building, he said, "I gradually understand that art is my time tunnel to the universe, so I want to connect the earth and the universe with a ladder and have a dialogue I look forward to."
But the dialogue with the universe is not simple. He walked all the way, from 1994 England's bad weather retirement, to the impact of the 1 1 incident in September 2006, and then to 1 1 years later, Los Angeles had no choice but to revoke its license.
/kloc-At 4: 50am in June, 0/5, Cai Guoqiang finally lit a long-lost light in the fishing village of Quanzhou, Fujian. His eyes followed the fire and climbed into the sky. The white smoke from the fireworks was a soaring cloud. At the end of the ladder is the infinite universe in his heart.
02
The fireworks on the "ladder" are Cai Guoqiang's dream of dialogue with the universe, and also his gift to 100-year-old grandmother, "show her the best fireworks".
Grandma is the first bole of fireworks art in Cai Guoqiang. Once he lit a fire with gunpowder outside the house to explore the mystery of fireworks. But in the process of burning, grandma covered the fire with shoes. She said, "gunpowder should not only be ignited, but also extinguished. Igniting everyone and extinguishing everyone is the artist's kung fu. "
Cai Guoqiang and grandma.
Cai Guoqiang was awakened by a word. Grandma saw her grandson playing with fire, without scolding or denying it, but conveyed the meaning through this move. She believes that her grandson, Xiao Qiang, will definitely make a difference and become an excellent artist in the future.
The support from the closest people, which is a kind of strength to inspire him, also let Cai Guoqiang, a child, sow the dream of fireworks from his heart.
Art is a very important state for me to keep my childhood dream. We are gradually maturing in the vast world, facing all kinds of problems in this world, and gradually becoming realistic, but art can keep my childhood vision of the world, my dream of being an artist, my passion and my small ambition. The most important thing is to keep the dream of being an artist as a child.
The artist was his childhood dream. It was his grandmother who inspired the fireworks, but his father couldn't trace the fireworks back to the fire.
Cai Guoqiang's father.
Cai Guoqiang 1957 was born in a small fishing village in Quanzhou. In his childhood, the most profound image of his father was books. He never used money to supplement his family, but used money to buy a lot of books, which he said was the wealth left to Cai Guoqiang.
Something unfortunate happened. One day, all the books his father had saved for him were burned to ashes. Cai Guoqiang looked at the fire lit by the book, and his heart was mixed. The fire became an indelible appearance in his heart, burning forever like a frozen memory.
Besides books, my father is an artist. He is a famous calligrapher at that time, and he can draw well, so he always attracts people looking for art everywhere to visit. Over time, under the influence of art, Cai Guoqiang naturally learned to draw.
Faced with painting and fireworks, Cai Guoqiang didn't want to give up either one. "I hope gunpowder is my friend, and we will take risks on the canvas together." He integrated fireworks and painting, and interpreted Cai Guoqiang's art in a unique way.
Fireworks are perishable, but he captured the traces of fireworks after a short bloom with canvas and fixed them as eternity. His unique artistic perspective turns the disjointed things into innovative art, and the gunpowder color on the canvas is like a faint ink painting year, conveying the beauty of art one by one.
The flowers in full bloom in the flower song are the beauty of life. Day and night in Toledo, the city of Toledo appears in the dark, and the flying birds are like messengers who drive away the night, holding the light of dawn. The last carnival hides delicate wildness between the lines, giving people a fresh but sad feeling.
Song of flowers
Toledo day and night
The last carnival
These paintings created with fire are not well controlled by strokes, but Cai Guoqiang well expresses the publicity and gentleness of fire, which is a kind of technical height and understanding of inner art, "expressing the invisible world with what can be seen in reality".
03
In the invisible world, the fireworks on the canvas are static expressions, while what blooms above the sky is Cai Guoqiang's interpretation of artistic trends.
The tornadoes spinning on the water are shining with bright golden light, like the milky way through the clouds. The moving rainbow is a colorful dream across the sky. Its reflection is connected with neon lights, carrying the dream of water and sky between light and shadow.
tornado
Moving rainbow
Fireworks seem to bloom only at night, but in Cai Guoqiang's world, his fireworks never only stay at night, but also live in the daytime sky.
The "daytime fireworks" on the Huangpu River in Shanghai and the "elegy" alternating with red and green, such as reeds growing on the river, are red swaying in the wind on the green branches, hoping to thrive in silence.
dirge
A mirage in the Middle East solo exhibition, with a black round wheel hanging in the air, has retreated from the glory. Can also be so magical, like a magnificent battlefield, in a barren land to open black flowers, obviously noble.
castles in the air
They are in full bloom in the air, with different postures and colorful colors. Like elegant and enthusiastic dancers, they dance freely with the wind, with shapes in their casual nature, and keep their initial heart free and easy, floating in the air and turning into repeated tobacco, which has always remained in their memories.
Cai Guoqiang is the fireworks in Zhao Meng's "Giving Fireworks": "The world is wonderful, and it is the same as refining medicine and burning lamps."
With his superb skills, Cai Guoqiang won the most important awards in the international art world, such as the Golden Lion Award, praemium imperiale Painting Lifetime Achievement Award and Asian Art Award ... He is also known as the "Four Kings" of contemporary art in China with Huang Yongping, Gu Wenda and Bing Xu.
Prishven once said, "All good things on earth come from the sun, and all good things come from people." Cai Guoqiang pursued the invisible world with his initial heart and created the beauty of the world with his unique artistic form. He is a master of fireworks, the fireworks in full bloom in our hearts.