Cai Guo-Qiang: Falling back to earth

76 77 Mark Dion United States b.1961 Landfill 1999–2000 Mixed media 181.6 x 374.7 x 162.6cm Collection: Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, CA Courtesy: The artist/Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York Endnotes The OED defines ‘Heritage’ as: Heritage n. that which is or may be inherited; inherited circumstances or benefits; (fig.) portion allotted to anybody; (Bibl.) the ancient Israelites, the Church. 1 Stephen Jay Gould, ‘Cabinet museums: Alive, alive, o!’ in Dinosaur in a Haystack: Reflections in Natural History , Harmony Books, New York, 1995, pp.243–4. 2 ‘The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.’ [Isaiah 11:6] And, ‘The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock: and dust shall be the serpent’s meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy.’ [Isaiah 65:25] 3 This, and subsequent quote, Cai Guo-Qiang, correspondence with author, June 2013. 4 Cai Guo-Qiang, correspondence with author. Here, Cai is referring to Lamington National Park, Stradbroke Island and the Low Isles of the Great Barrier Reef. 5 New York earth room is at 141 Wooster Street, New York City, and is maintained by the Dia Foundation. 6 Nancy Holt, ‘Hydra’s Head’, Arts Magazine 49, no.5, Special Issue: Sculpture (January 1975), pp.57–9. 7 Gaston Bachelard, Water and Dreams: An Essay on the Imagination of Matter , trans. Edith R Farrell, the Bachelard Translations, the Pegasus Foundation and the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture, Dallas, 1983, p.28; first published as L’Eau and les Revesm: Essai sur l’imagination de la matiere , Librairie Jose Corti, Paris, 1942. 8 Richard Cavendish (ed.), Mythology: An Illustrated Encyclopedia , Orbis, London, 1980, p.8. 9 Cavendish, pp.8–9. 10 The narrative of Tiddalik or Moloch is an Aboriginal cosmological story from the Gunai/Kurnai people of the Gippsland region detailing the creation of the landscape around Port Albert, east of Melbourne, by an Ancestral Frog. In recent times, this narrative has been widely adapted to a story about a group of animals working together against the single greedy frog who drank all of the earth’s water. In contrast, American artist Mark Dion’s use of taxidermied and constructed beasts is focused on critiquing notions of curation, museological display and historical knowledge, as well as exploring ideas about ecology and the environment. Again, the aim here is not to establish a direct connection with Cai’s work, but to suggest a context for approaching it. Such comparisons reveal differences that render Cai’s work distinct. IV. Heritage is a mythic, allegorical spectacle. Allegory is often didactic. We tell ourselves stories in order to teach ourselves about the world. Traditionally, myths are ‘imaginative traditions about the nature, history and destiny of the world, the gods, man and society’. 8 Richard Cavendish suggests that they exist in ‘all societies, of the present as well as the past. They are part of the fabric of human life, expressing beliefs, moulding behaviour and justifying institutions, customs and values’. Key to the idea of myth is the notion of truthfulness: A myth is a story or tradition which claims to enshrine a fundamental truth about the world and human life, which is regarded in its own milieu as authoritative, but whose truth is not literal, historic or scientific. As Cavendish also states: When old myths are lost, new ones are needed. Myths flourish and fade and die, but new myths are born, old ones are resurrected, and hybrid forms combining new and old emerge when times change or cultures mingle. 9 This watering hole, this quiet gathering place, proposes a new myth. Its truth is not literal, historic or scientific. It rejects the rationalism of science in order to speak a poetic language. And its truth is poetic. The gallery reverberates with echoes of mythic tales from all around the world: of Noah and the flood, gathering the animals together in order to save them (is, then, the gallery a kind of ark?); and countless African, Asian and Aboriginal stories that tell of all the animals and birds coming together to form a council and work out together how to solve a problem that affects them all. 10 And perhaps this is a vision of the future after all? An image of what the earth might inherit? The pool of water is the eye of the earth.