Cover Cai’s “Sky Ladder”, June 15, 2015, 4:45 am (dawn), still from “Sky Ladder: The Art of Cai Guo-Qiang” (Photo: A Netflix Documentary copyright © 2016 by Great Wall Star Media, LLC and DJM Holding Ltd)
Cai’s “Sky Ladder”, June 15, 2015, 4:45 am (dawn), still from “Sky Ladder: The Art of Cai Guo-Qiang” (Photo: A Netflix Documentary copyright © 2016 by Great Wall Star Media, LLC and DJM Holding Ltd)
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Tatler Asia’s arts and culture editor demystifies the artworks we love—or love to hate. In this iteration, we deconstruct an artwork by Cai Guo-Qiang that appears to be a fireworks display
On June 2015 at the crack of dawn, a massive white balloon floated above Huiyu Island Harbour in Quanzhou, Fujian, China. An explosive-laden 500-metre-long ladder was suspended from it and once ignited, it erupted into a fiery rendering of a ladder ascending to the skies. Most onlookers might not have known what to make of it: was it a burning ladder, a pyrotechnic experiment, or fireworks?
The answer as it turns out, is all the above, and something more: Sky Ladder was one of the most iconic artworks by artist Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang, who after years of experimentation managed to create his own stairway to heaven.
This seminal piece is emblematic of Cai’s trailblazing practice in which he fuses traditional fine art with science resulting in one-of-a-kind, innovative works—which are large in scale and ambition. He is primarily known for using gunpowder to create his artistic masterpieces, on canvases, and like Sky Ladder, in the skies.
Cai’s inspiration for creating Sky Ladder came from his desire to connect earth with the universe—an idea he had nurtured since he was a child. The event in 2015 was his fourth and final attempt. He had attempted it thrice previously, in Bath in 1994, Shanghai in 2001 and LA in 2012, but without success.
Above Cai’s “Sky Ladder”, June 15, 2015, 4:45 am (dawn) (Photo: Wen-You Cai, courtesy of Cai Studio)
Cai’s “Sky Ladder”, June 15, 2015, 4:45 am (dawn) (Photo: Wen-You Cai, courtesy of Cai Studio)
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Sky Ladder also had a deeply personal dimension to it, as it was executed in the New York based artist’s hometown in China, and was an ode of sorts to his grandmother. Always a huge supporter of his career, Cai’s grandmother was never able to see any of his explosion events live. She saw Sky Ladder over a video call, and passed away one month later.
Cai’s relationship with his hometown, country and documentary was explored in a 2016 Netflix documentary Sky Ladder: The Art of Cai Guo-Qiang, directed by Academy Award winner Kevin Macdonald. While the film was centred around the making of Sky Ladder, it also revealed Cai’s creative journey and processes, at the core of which is his use and experimentation with gunpowder.
In the 9th century CE, Chinese monks accidentally discovered gunpowder in their quest to develop an immortality elixir. A millennia later, in 1984, Cai began experimenting with it and found a way to wrangle the material’s combustive nature and create artistic masterpieces.
Cai had started by studying stage design in Shanghai, but he was primarily producing paintings and drawings before he encountered gunpowder. Once he did, after much experimentation, he finetuned his process. He starts by making sketches on a special Japanese paper placed on the floor, over which he sprinkles gunpowder around demarcated lines. Cai then covers the work using pieces of cardboard and places bricks or rocks on top, as weights to limit and control the explosion. The work is then lit, and after the blast occurs, after stamping out excess smoke, it is uncovered, revealing the charred, singed image.
Above Cai’s “Footprints of History: Fireworks for the Opening Ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games”, August 8, 2008 (Photo: Hiro Ihara, courtesy of Cai Studio)
Cai’s “Footprints of History: Fireworks for the Opening Ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games”, August 8, 2008 (Photo: Hiro Ihara, courtesy of Cai Studio)
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The compulsion to use gunpowder arose from a specific context in which the artist was operating and from a desire to operate outside a controlled environment, and a longing for spontaneity and freedom, whether that is from the society he is living in or the constraints he had within himself. Cai, who describes himself as shy, feels that the experimental, exciting nature of gunpowder allows him to explore a fearless side of himself.
“The allure of gunpowder lies in its uncontrollable nature and unpredictability,” the artist tells Tatler in an interview. “My creations oscillate between destruction and construction, control and freedom.”
Cai’s works reflect these extremities which are inherent not only in gunpowder but also in society. This is particularly evident in his series The Century with Mushroom Clouds: Project for the 20th Century (1995-96). For this series, Cai invokes one of the most destructive nuclear explosions in history, the World War II bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He has reimagined it at various sites (including at Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty [1969-70], a site-specific work in Utah), and the mushroom cloud he “produces” is displayed alongside an actual Lingzhi mushroom—a common healing ingredient in traditional Chinese medicine. In capturing the violent symbolism associated with the clouds and the healing aspect of the mushroom, Cai’s work evokes the potential of power (through the gunpowder explosion) and the fragile and ephemeral nature of life (through the mushroom).
Above Cai’s “The Century with Mushroom Clouds: Project for the 20th Century” (at the site of Robert Smithson’s “Spiral Jetty”) (Photo: courtesy of Cai Studio)
Cai’s “The Century with Mushroom Clouds: Project for the 20th Century” (at the site of Robert Smithson’s “Spiral Jetty”) (Photo: courtesy of Cai Studio)
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Cai’s use of gunpowder and mastery of pyrotechnics is a novelty in contemporary art, and has landed him prestigious institutional exhibitions around the world such as a solo show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 2006, and a retrospective at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York in 2008, which travelled to the National Art Museum of China that same year. He has also been awarded the Golden Lion Prize at the 1999 Venice Biennale. Outside the realm of art, he is best known for creating the pyrotechnics for the memorable 2008 Beijing Olympic opening ceremony. His upcoming project is a collaboration with PST Art, for which he will create a large-scale explosion event at (or rather over) the LA Coliseum this September, the execution of which will involve an AI component.
“The core of my art is not about the explosion itself, but about the unseen world, the energies, it’s the pursuit of a more intrinsic sense of mystery.” With a simple but sophisticated idea of using gunpowder, Cai tapped into the material’s duality, simultaneously exposing its capacity for destruction and its potential for connection—to the universe, through artistic means.
He continues to expand the ever-evolving definition of what art can be through staging these spectral, durational events, and that’s why Sky Ladder is art.
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Aaina was the Arts and Culture Editor of Tatler Asia. A passion for history and all things visual led her in the pursuit of art history. With extensive experience in the art world working for a range of art institutions, she combined her passion and expertise in the form of art and culture journalism. Prior to Tatler, Aaina worked as a culture reporter for South China Morning Post and editor at the online art platform Cobo Social. Additionally, she has contributed to a variety of prestigious art publications including Art Review, The Art Newspaper, Ocula, Art Agenda, Artsy, Design Anthology, and Artomity. Follow her on Instagram.
