Fireworks

Cai Guo-Qiang: I Want to Believe
Guggenheim
Feb. 22 - May 28, 2008

I guarantee you'll be slack-jaw wowed the minute you step inside. Seven automobiles suspended overhead, some upside down, flash colored lights like fireworks or some Vegas hallucination. Up the ramp, you soon encounter a streak of tigers stuck with arrows, then a pack of flying wolves on their way towards death against a sheet of glass.

(One nightmarish figure you won't run into is longtime Guggenheim director and art-as-commerce evangelist Thomas Krens, who recently announced his overdue departure.)

This art's mind-bending and breathtaking visual punch is certainly a delight -- kids love it -- but is it all style and technical trickery? With his theatrics and fireworks (more on that later), is Cai Guo-Qiang the Michael Bay of contemporary art?

But this isn't Jeff Koons eye-candy stuff. Cai's work takes on weighty topics -- the stuffed tigers and wolves are meant to be stand-ins for civilization and ideology.

Another installation -- "Cry Dragon/Cry Wolf: the Ark of Genghis Khan" (1996) -- takes on globalization. A Mongolian-style raft of roped-together animal skins floats overhead, backed by three working Toyota engines. And if you didn't get it the first time, mounted to one wall are old copies of Newsweek and Forbes with sensationalist Asia-phobic headlines.

A room-size "mini-retrospective" curated by Cai called "An Arbitrary History: River" features a twisty artificial river and boat. You can take your turn on this charming water-park ride floating past several other works like several of his smaller-scale pieces from the 90s such as "Snake Bag - Multiculture" (1993), with live snakes presumably meant to make us think of multiculturalism, and "Trap: Project for the 20th Century" (1997), including live birds and a model PT boat.

The metaphors are awkward and heavy-handed. His political messages are silly, safe or obvious. But while Cai is trained in stage design, what's left manages to be more than amazing stage sets. Even if it's not up to its grandiose pretensions, this is art -- a dash of surrealism, a twist of Hong Kong Disneyland, a sprinkle of Damien Hirst.

Cai is best known for his pyrotechnic performances. Born in China and currently living in New York, he travels the world, putting on elaborate earthworks-inspired displays with gunpowder explosions in the air and on the ground. In "Project to Extend the Great Wall of China by 10,000 Meters" (1994), part of his "Projects for Extraterrestrials" series, a line of gunpowder explodes through the Gobi Desert. In another ET project, "Fetus Movement II (1991), set in a German military base, the artist is attached to seismograph, electrocardiogram and electroencephalogram to take measurements during the explosion.

Unsurprisingly, many of his pyro-performances have taken place around museums around the world. Here in New York, he collaborated with Grucci Brothers in "Transient Rainbow" (2003) a smoke rainbow executed from Roosevelt Island to commemorate the MoMA's temporary relocation to Queens. And in the summer of '06, he set off smoke bombs on the Met's roof garden.

He also does more mainstream displays. As early as 1994, he executed a performance for the Asian Games. In 2001, he did a massive show for an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation event -- easily the most elaborate fireworks I've ever seen. And this year he's a key member of the team organizing the opening and closing ceremonies for the Bejing Olympics.

Conveniently for collectors, each of Cai's performances is paired with a large drawing done using gunpowder on paper. They resemble cave paintings of a shamanic snake oil salesman. Better are the videos of the performances, and a video of the making of the gunpowder drawings.

Visual blitzkrieg, overloaded metaphors, and mystical goofiness aside, there's something likable about Cai. For all the monumental bang, his materials are natural and humble: bamboo, burlap, gunpowder, paper, clay, etc.

For me, the standout is "New York's Rent Collection Courtyard," a recreation of a Mao-era Chinese sculptural installation depicting the oppression of peasants by the landlords. First appropriated and recontextualized by Cai in 1999 for the Venice Biennale, where it won the top prize, the work ingeniously uses the original Chinese artisan collective to sculpt the 20 or more clay figures. (Oddly he was sued for copyright infringement and won.) Last Sunday, two members of this team were still at work, adding some finishing touches while become a living part of Cai's art. Intriguingly, the installation's final section depicting the revolutionary triumph of the peasants will be left undone, the armatures left bare. I'm not sure if it's deliberate, but it's a nice instance of metaphor done right.

Also making use of Asian labor is "Reflection - Gift from Iwaki" (2004). This evocative piece features a boat excavated by residents of northeastern Japan, who were invited to reinstall it in the Gugg. The wrecked boat overflows full of broken porcelain, including Buddhist figures.

The exhibition continues in two semi-hidden areas. The Gugg's reading room has a porcelain bas-relief flower stained with gunpowder ("Black Peony," 2008), a limited edition of 20 available for purchase at $50,000 each, limit one per customer. For those with less jack in their pockets, head to the gift shop for some smart-looking alternatives, including some Chinese stamps given the gunpowder treatment. Disclosure: Our friend K.L. works in the museum's merchandising department.

Downstairs in the Sackler Center, there are some objects documenting Cai's "Everything is a Museum" project, which have been installed in unusual spaces in Japan, Italy and Taiwan. Works include objects by Norman Foster, Jennifer Wen Ma, Kiki Smith and Tan Du.

While there's much to find fault with, there's also something irresistibly likable. A lightness and joy, something like mid-summer fireworks display. Or could my mood be buoyed by the lifting of the Krens curse?