Cover ‘Le Dernier Carnaval’ at Centre Pompidou, Paris by Cai on October 22, 2025 (Photo: Getty Images)
‘Le Dernier Carnaval’ at Centre Pompidou, Paris by Cai on October 22, 2025 (Photo: Getty Images)
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Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang orchestrated an AI-assisted fireworks performance titled ‘Le Dernier Carnaval’ yesterday to mark the temporary closure of Paris’s Centre Pompidou.
The Centre Pompidou, Paris’s celebrated contemporary art institution, closed its doors for a five-year renovation. To mark the occasion, in an event timed with Art Basel Paris week, Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang presented a fireworks spectacle conceived through his proprietary AI model, cAI™. The performance, Le Dernier Carnaval (The Last Carnival), unfolded in three dynamic acts: The Banquet, The Dawn of AI and The Last Carnival; each symbolising the museum’s progressive vision for the future.
“For the first time in its history, the Centre Pompidou’s façade becomes a monumental painting,” said Jérôme Neutres, the museum’s curator. “Cai delivers his most profound and complex work yet—one in dialogue with both AI and the Parisian public.”
Don’t miss: From the sky to the screen: Cai Guo Qiang renegotiates human artists’ relationship with AI
Above ‘Le Dernier Carnaval’ at Centre Pompidou, Paris by Cai on October 22, 2025 (Photo: Getty Images)
‘Le Dernier Carnaval’ at Centre Pompidou, Paris by Cai on October 22, 2025 (Photo: Getty Images)
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The Quanzhou-born pyrotechnic artist has long been a fixture in the global art scene and a favourite among luxury brands. His celebrated works include Sky Ladder (2015), featuring a 503-metre ladder of fire ascending into the skies above his hometown, and Saint Laurent: When the Sky Blooms with Sakura (2013), staged in Japan. This summer, he was in the Macau region to unveil his AI-driven exhibition cAI™ Lab 2.0 — Is It Your Gaze that Meets Mine, or Mine that Seeks Yours?, which explores the dynamic relationship between technology and artistic creation.
His recent work The Rising Dragon in Tibet drew criticism last month for reportedly disturbing conservation zones in the Himalayas.
Zabrina is the Senior Editor, Arts and Culture of Tatler Hong Kong. She specialises in performing arts, visual art and film. Her wanderlust was first fuelled by the Mighty Rovers Antarctica Expedition 2010. Over the years, she has interviewed A-list artists and filmmakers, including Oscar winners Chlóe Zhao and Tim Yip, Golden Horse winner Sylvia Chang, In the Mood for Love cinematographer Christopher Doyle, Pachinko author Min Jin Lee, and Coachella’s first Chinese solo singer Jackson Wang. She won gold at the WAN-IFRA Asian Media Awards for her 2021 feature on the waves of hate crimes targeting Asian Americans.
