Cai Guo-Qiang: I Want to Believe

by Thomas Krens, Alexandra Munroe, Miwon Kwon

I Want to Believe accompanies the most comprehensive exhibition to date of the innovative body of work by Chinese-born artist Cai Guo-Qiang--best known for his spectacular artworks using gunpowder and fireworks. It presents a chronological and thematic survey that charts the artist's creation of a distinctive visual and conceptual language across four drawings made from gunpowder fuses and explosive powders laid on paper and ignited; explosion events, documented by videos, photographs and preparatory drawings; large-scale installations; and social projects, wherein the artist works with local communities to create an art event or exhibition site, documented by photographs. Featuring works from the 1980s to the present, this volume illuminates Cai's significant formal and conceptual contributions to contemporary international art practices and social activism. Generously illustrated more than 368 pages, this volume includes essays by Alexandra Munroe, David Joselit, Miwon Kwon and Wang Hui--along with some 60 documented plate entries. It is the defining scholarly publication on the artist thus far.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction

316 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 2008

About the author

Thomas Krens (26 December, 1946) is the former director and Senior Advisor for International Affairs of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in New York City.

During his 20-year tenure as director he expanded the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum globally by enlarging and raising the profile of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, Italy, & building the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Spain (1997), Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin, Germany, and Guggenheim Las Vegas.

Reviews

[chase Adams · Rating 5 out of 5]

A catalogue done right. I couldn't rank it by its outstading show, the first time I've seen the Guggenheim installed well (takes a feng shui master to pull this off, apparently), but had to judge it by the execution of the text. I've tried to avoid purchasing catalogues that become coffee-table books. Sixty to eighty dollars due to all the ineffective color plates that can't compare to witnessing the actual work. It's been more important lately to purchase theory, essays, interviews....But damn it if this catalogue didn't win me over. The opening essays are all quite capable, covering all the bases: Cai's theatrics from his experience as a stage designer, his work's relationship with a wary and skeptical Chinese art tradition, a comparison of his process to the readymade, and the expenditure involved in all this spectacle. At this point I had the book ranked a 3, and thought that I had this covered since all that were left were images and explanatory text.
But because most of the works consisted of an event, or were related to the event (the gunpowder drawings that sketch out the projects' logistics), this proved to be much more entertaining and dense than your usual catalog. The kicker was this fantastic anthology of writings about Cai's work and interviews with Cai, which covered the trajectory of his work from China, Japan, and New York, as well as the response to his work at different stages of his acceptance by several different art worlds, and the critical response to his work on either side of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Worth owning, Owen and Rashi.

[William West]

Okay, I've not actually read the book. But its the catalog to the most amazing contemporary art exhibit I've ever seen. (It was at the NY Guggenheim.)

[Heather De armas · Rating 5 out of 5]

I want to give this review for the exhibit as well as this worthy book as a companion piece. He is a true artist.