Cai Guo-Qiang Retrospective: The Dynamics of Destruction and Beauty

I’ve seen Cai’s Inpportune piece before. I saw it in SAM this past summer, and it had a much different affect. I found it to be much more effective in the Guggenheim than it was in SAM. There was something very hokey about the installation in SAM. I was reminded of the closing scene in Grease where Olivia Newton John and John Travolta fly away from the fairgrounds together. The cars were all suspended in the air, at varying heights, and they seemed to be nothing more than flying cars – I considered the cars to be several different, separate cars, not representative of a single car tumbling through space. It was like a school of flying white Ford Tauruses. Cai’s attempt to create movement from objects so immense, hefty and static is interesting to examine.

The design of the interior of the Guggenheim really improved the affect of Inopportune. When I first saw it in the Guggenheim, I thought the car was one car, which had fallen from the top, and appeared in s

tills, falling, tumbling in freefall towards the bottom. As I looked at it m

ore, though, I wondered if the cars weren’t lifting off, spinning in the air, and landing on the top level. The spiral design of the interior also lends itself to the dynamic of the piece; it keeps your eye circulating around the cars, and opens up the piece to multiple perspectives. The audio guide talked about how Cai is very particular in the placement of his installations and adheres to feng shui principles.

 

The first time I saw the piece, in SAM, I considered it to be more of a technical accomplishment than anything else; I remember I was amazed that those cars were able to be successfully suspended in the air. I didn’t make the car bomb connection. I didn’t draw any political connections, but rather I thought maybe the installation was meant to be a social commentary. The first thought that came to mind for me was that it was a commentary

 on Ameri

ca’s flashy consumer culture and a commentary on obsolescence. The cars were white, and that symbolized a sort of pure, unassuming, helpless object, on which we project value and importance.  Given that my response to the pieces was so visceral, I didn’t think they were constructed with an intellectual, or political, response in mind.

 

There seems to be an abundance of dichotomies in Cai’s work, so the juxtaposition of beauty and destruction comes as no surprise. It is central to the concept of yin and yang in Chinese philosophy – one cannot exist without the other. These opposite natures coexist and must coexist for harmony. Paradoxes like this are central to the way our universe functions, I think. In death there is life, in life exists death. When one witnesses a car accident, the first response may be shock, disgust, aversion, but that’s followed immediately by curiosity, and attraction, rubber necking. This is perhaps due to a fascination with the unknown – death, but also with a satisfaction that the misfortune didn’t happen to one’s self. So there’s this element of voyeurism.