Masterpieces of Cai Guo-Qiang and Butterfly Effect in Art - Essay Example

Locating My Art No artist works in a vacuum. That is not the nature of art. Art is the artist’s way of relating to the world. The artist relates to the environment and history, to the culture and his or her life and place. The art is a way of relating to everything else. It is the nature and purpose of art to create a reaction in the audience, and this can be thought to be permanent in that the reaction can never be undone, only changed. However, it is also fleeting in that it can never be repeated and it exists, perhaps, for only moments and then it is gone. Some art, particularly performance art, lasts only moments also, but the reaction to the art is both fleeting and permanent in that same sense of the inability to undo it and the inability to repeat it. This condition exists even for art that we consider to be more permanent. Rosenblatt (1978) said this for writing, that the reader is never the same reader, because they are changed by the poem and the poem is never the same poem, because the meaning is changed by the reader, and it applies equally to the more visual forms of art. Art changes the audience, the artist and the art. In looking at my own art I tried to figure out just exactly where it is in the sense of its relationship with my world, my life, my culture. It is both my reaction to the culture and the current state of the world and my hope for this culture and the world at large. In this way I am also related to every other artist in the world, past, present and future. Even those whose art I have never experienced have made some change in this entire plane of existence, and so we are related. Those who have never seen my art or will never see it, but who express their relationship to the rest of the world are also related to my art in that my art has made a change in their world. It does not matter that some of the changes made before me are miniscule, nor does it matter that the changes my art makes are infinitesimally small. They are there never-the-less, and the world in which the art which follows previous expression is different as a result. It is difficult to express my feeling on this in writing, because words are inadequate. Words are not my medium for expression. I am not a poet in words. However, I am striving for the same level of ability to express myself in my medium as the poet attains with words. Cai Guo Qiang is mostly a performance artist, though there are many examples of more permanent creations by him than the pieces which are entirely performance. The fireworks of the Olympic Games in Beijing are a good example of this, and they show how famous he is. When I learned about him, I was really not aware of our connection, and he is not likely to ever become aware of it on any personal level or in any tangible way. He will likely never know I exist at all, but I know he exists, and in that way, he does relate to me. I am part of his audience, yet he is also part of my inspiration. His art has changed me, and so changed my art. I hope someday to be able to create a visualization of that web I have described. One of the strongest connections between us relates to Cai Guo Qiang’s projects with gunpowder. The relationship is both my reaction to it as expressed in my work, and the comparison and contrast which can be made between his work and mine. Let us take, for example, the "Black Rainbow," proposal. (2005) It is solely performance, and the artwork only exists now as an idea and a representation for remembrance in photos or vides. The actual work no longer exists at all. Yes I have reacted to its former existence and its present changed existence, and I have expressed my reaction in the world which has already been changed by the art of Cai Guo Qiang. My origami swan is fragile and will not last even my lifetime without extreme protection. This particular work has even more tangible connections to mine when they are compared. The rainbow is black made with gunpowder. This is far more subtle than my little swan made of trash, because his rainbow is far more fleeting, less permanent, yet far more powerful in its impact, because his audience is much larger than mine. The original work only lasted for mere minutes, yet its impact will certainly echo down time, perhaps ages, and mine will have little influence beyond this class. The audience for the actual creation of the black rainbow was quite large, and they will carry their reaction for the remainder of their lives. Many of this audience were also artists, and they will create art which relates to this, just as I have done. Some of this art will have only a tiny impact, yet some will have a very large impact. Cai Guo-Qiang may never know the extent of the impact of this piece of work, but that does not change this reality. My little swan compares with this black rainbow in that I created it after my exposure to this work. I was not there to witness the original, but I see the echoes, and am part of this vast audience and the echoes of this work. There is also a more tangible connection. The Black Rainbow was very large and my swan is very small, yet the swan is of infinite folds. I am counting not only the folds which I made, but the folds made in the creation of the paper itself, as fibres were tangles and folded around each other. The choice of medium has another relationship. Quo-Qiang’s gunpowder can obliterate my swan, but the swan also perpetuates the Rainbow, because it is an expression of my reaction to that. Both works are related to the environment and are of a less than permanent form. Guo-Qiang’s Rainbow, in fact, no longer exists at all. Only the echoes are real. My swan is one of these. It is more tangible, but is made of very fragile materials. Even though Guo-Qiang’s Rainbow made a large sound, and my swan is silent, I can hear the sound they make together in my head. My sound is as fleeting as Cai Guo-Qiang’s smoke and less tangible, because I am the only one who really perceives it. Another of Guo-Qiang’s works is "Inopportune: Stage One" (2004). I also was exposed to this work before I created my swan. It made me think about trash. It also made me think about the appropriateness of the work of art. My swan is pretty, but made from trash. Quo-Qiang’s cars and beams are pretty, but also made from trash. Using the usually not terribly artistic image of a car bomb is somehow a little disquieting, a little inappropriate and a little emotionally jarring. My swan does not disturb, but the image of an origami swan is historical. Yet those historical swans were made of beautiful, often of hand made, pristine paper. Mine is made of trash, used, recycled, just as Cai Guo-Qiang recycled the cars and the trash from which he created the rays of explosion. Maybe everything is really trash in the process of being created and destroyed. Reflection is also related to my swan in different ways than Black Rainbow. This work is created from trash, like my swan. However, some of the porcelain “trash” used in his work is created trash. That is, it was created in order for the artist to have the materials with which to create his work. Outside of its existence in this work, the porcelain statuettes have little value. At the very least, most are broken. I did not create the trash from which my swan is made. However, the swan is more useful than was the trash, just as these broken statuettes are mostly only useful in this work. Quo-Qiang chose an historically important image from which to create his modern image. Yet the modern image is a statement about the nature of the materials. My swan is an historical image itself made from modern trash. Cai Goa-Qiang’s work is a comment of the nature of history and a criticism of historical art reproduced for modern consumption. My swan is a comment on the nature of our current state and it reflects historically important art works from China, and it has yet another unspoken connection to the west. The paper trash is the ugly duckling of our modern existence, which through art has become a beautiful swan, however fleeting its existence might be. Another work which relates to my swan is Inopportune Stage Two. The connection is very tenuous, mostly the images being both of animals. Cai Guo-Qiang created a very realistic looking tiger, a magnificent yet endangered species in the wild pierced throughout with arrows, one of man’s earliest weapons. I found this very disturbing, hence my falling swan. I might yet create other images of my swan being destroyed, perhaps by flame. I do not yet know what I will create in the future in reaction to this image. I only know that my reaction to it was very strong, so I assume that my future work will have some kind of a relationship with this one. I have made a 3D swan out of paper. The swan was made out of everyday junk mail that we get in our mails. The reason for making it was to recycle to wasted junk mail and try to turn it in to an art object or something that looks beautiful and is possibly somewhat useful. The swan is made in to 3D so there is spot to place an object in the center of the body. There are many artists out in the world that turn everyday disposal junk into some kind of art or useful object like, for instance, Patricia Zapata makes art out of scrap paper too (2009). Also there are bigger art pieces, like the tower that was made out of recycled objects, the most fascinating recycled art project piece is by Cai Gup-Qiang that he made out of confiscated illegal objects from the airport. The picture at the right shows a close-up of the bottom part and the picture below is the full work which now resides at the Smithsonian Institute. Guo-Qiang is an eclectic artist, using what he finds, sees or imagines to create his reaction to the world. His choice of a crocodile is interesting, since it was also endangered until using the skin of wild crocodiles for leather was made illegal. Goa-Qiang’s menacing crocodile in the bottom of the monument looks like this up close: As for the gesture that I did after making the swan of going to the park and placing the swan with a real live rabbit made it seem alive by association. My theme for that gesture is to try to make the swan to seem alive and also let people realize that even a paper swan can seem alive even if it made out of recycled objects. Every day household junk does not necessary have to become trash. The result of this try was not that successful, because the rabbet was always trying to run away and people seem more into the rabbit then the swan. The failed result of this gesture allowed me to relate to the many other artists out there who try to do a gesture art piece and then fail. For example, there was one artist (put in name and year) who tried to imitate the sitting down in a room full of people and had the audience cut her cloth off piece by piece then pin it down around there, but her gesture also failed due to the result of other people’s action. This somewhat kind of related to my failure by there being similar reaction of the people which spoiled the effect there and also due to the distraction of the object that was supposed to help and support the art piece and my gesture. The gesture seemed more about the cute bunny than the swan. After that I made many tries at setting it free up into the sky (aka: throwing it in to the sky over and over again), and then trying to watching it land on different tree branches (eg: me placing it on different tree branches making it seem that it flew to a different tree branch). The reaction that I got was weird looks from people. But I did get some people asking me how I made the swan, and they were kind of fascinated by it while I was taking the pictures. Me personally, I didn’t like the attention that I got when I was setting the swan free (throwing it in to the sky), but I did like the attention when people asked about the making of the swan. It made the swan seem more useful and made me feel more was accomplished. Before finishing this essay I thought about all these connections and realized that there are even more. For example, I am connected to all the people who were connected to this piece of trash paper from which I made the swan. That piece of paper was useful fro some time and some change was made in the world as a result. Even my confiscation of the paper and the redirection of its existence from trash to a paper swan and finally eventually to trash again is a change. I believe in what is called the “butterfly principal” in that everything is connected somehow and each change we make will have echoes and create changes. Maybe my change is very small, but something that it changes may make more change and eventually one of those changes could be a quantum leap or a disaster. For now, it is something of some beauty and it brings a little pleasure into the world. So the art of these people I study and learn from is a part of a wide connection among us and the rest of the world. Cai Guo-Qiang is one I revere especially, as he keeps creating new things from new materials, almost as if he is constantly recreating himself. I am really in awe of such massive imagination. He has changed my world and my perception of art especially. In this way, Cai Guo-Qiang has influenced my world and my art. This little swan I made was a reaction to his work, almost like a conversation we had without ever meeting or speaking. It was a little one way, since I did not speak to him directly. However, my little swan and this essay will make a tiny difference in my world, that same world occupied by all the other artists, and so it is fragile yet immortal in some small way. So perhaps it lives after all. References Cai Guo-Qiang, 2004, Reflection, http://www.pbs.org/art21/slideshow/?slide=346&artindex=82 2005, Black Rainbow, http://www.pbs.org/art21/slideshow/?slide=342&artindex=82 2004, Inopportune: Stage One, http://www.pbs.org/art21/slideshow/?slide=348&artindex=82 2004, Inopportune Stage Two, http://www.pbs.org/art21/slideshow/?slide=351&artindex=82 2008, Footprints of History, http://www.caiguoqiang.com/shell.php?sid=2 2006, Transparent Monument, http://www.designboom.com/contemporary/cai.html 2006, Transparent Monument, http://www.designboom.com/contemporary/cai.html Rosenblatt, Louise M. 1978. The Reader, the Text, the Poem: The Transactional Theory of the Literary Work. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. Zapata, 2009, A Little Hut, http://alittlehut.blogspot.com/search/label/crafty%20synergy Read More