Cai Guo-Qiang

I would like to believe that the title Cai Guo-Qiang: I Want to Believe conveys the spirit of my art, as well as my identity as an artist. As this is a retrospective exhibition, apart from being an overall view of over 20 years of my artistic practice, the works themselves resonate with the title of the exhibition. It has something to do with my development as an artist and the fundamental origins of my art: the curiosity of a child and a doubting attitude towards life experiences and preconceived expectations. In the case of a suicide bombing in Inopportune: Stage One, after such an act is revealed, the expectation is to wish for this experience to be false, for it to remain only an illusion.

Within the symbolic, iconic, and visually intense Guggenheim Museum building, I expect my works to create a change. Most artists in the past have made a point to allow the elegant lines and space of the museum to reveal themselves amply in order to emphasize the building’s void and melodious structure. Many of my own works harmonize with the museum’s lines. Nonetheless, my intent for the present exhibition is to fill the void, to fill it with energy, so that the museum will resemble the inner wall of a bomb on the verge of exploding.

I would also like to explore what happens when pieces of art are taken out of their original contexts (because we know installations are created within specific contexts,) will they retain their charm as works of art when they are presented outside of their initial settings? This is a matter I want to explore throughout the retrospective. For example, my installation entitled An Arbitrary History: River is a self-curated mini-retrospective of several of my works originally realized for past exhibitions and biennials. In An Arbitrary History: River, I wish to convey the idea that art history is arbitrary, that it is quite subjective, my retrospective at the Guggenheim included. Although the exhibition encompasses a vast number of my major works, it is a subjective and arbitrary history. My works in the exhibition also reflect the chaotic state of my art, as they are diverse, and full of humor.

I hope when visitors finish viewing the exhibition, they will see this experience as a journey that has not yet ended, a journey that they can continue even after they leave the museum. I hope once they have seen the works, they would not be satisfied with just reading the stories about yet another cultural symbol, but they would be able to perceive an individual’s way of thinking, his knowledge and particular representation of the world, and furthermore, the contradictions and angst of the artist, including his quest for adventure and creative aspirations, and the joy he wishes to share with everyone else. I also hope they can see the chaos present in my works, and yet behind the chaos, they would grasp an overall impression of my artistic practice. It may be a kind of tolerance, tolerance for various forms of art and their themes. My approach to creating artworks through diverse artistic forms is—no rule is the rule. It’s a rule of spontaneity, where the self is liberated and is oblivious to its own existence, where one is often serendipitous and not wholly knowledgeable. Art, for me, is like a tunnel of time and space where I am free to, and need to, play between the two ends.