The Second Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art exhibition catalogue (APT2)

Chinese artist Cai Guo Qiang makes big strokes, not in traditional ink, but using a different medium of expression developed in China-gunpowder. The tall, thin, pensive Cai carries himself more like a gentleman-philosopher than a pyrotechnician and makes physical, conceptual and spiritual gestures on an awe-inspiring scale. Cai's work explores both local and universal issues, generated by a sensitive, sometimes complicated equation of place, process and materials. Cai's explosive events are intended for observation from both the cosmos and the ground. He went to Japan first in late 1986, 'one of many young Chinese who dreamt of leaving their country for modern society, modern culture'. 1 Yet his work is as inextricably linked with ancient Chinese ideas, events and traditions as it is radically forward-looking. The project proposed for the Second Asia-Pacific Triennial is certainly in line with his standard modus operandi. Cai 's complicated projects purposefully cross many social and political boundaries, and the clash between indigenous Australian mythologies and Western modernist urbanisation [s a fitting and timely topic for an artwork in Brisbane. Here he is engaging the historical and contemporary issues of the location with a conceptual rigour and poetic imagery. Cai's proposal integrates aspects of the Dhuwa people's legend of the Rainbow Serpent with Chinese beliefs about the Dragon to create a transcultural, site-specific work which draws upon the ancient and the modern, the Chinese and the indigenous Australian, the spirits and humanity, the sky and the earth, the land and the water- his artworks are open systems for the imagination. After exploration of the site and some orientation with Queensland Art Gallery staff and local residents, Cai settled on the connections between the Brisbane River, the Rainbow Serpent and the Chinese Dragon. He was especially interested in the Wagilag Sisters myth, the central focus of the Dhuwa moiety, which tells the story of the Sisters' journey and their encounter with the snake and its wrath. Loosely transcribed, the snake first flooded the Sisters by rains it created, devoured and spat the Sisters out, and then killed and ate them again, rising up into the sky to create a rainbow. Upon falling to the earth, the snake left a triangular mark and two rings in the earth, the traditional shape of the ceremonial ground upon which the Djunguan ritual is performed. Wititj the Great Python, sometimes seen as a rainbow, makes lightning with his tongue and thunder with his voice. 2 Surveying the artist's drawings and proposal, we see how this myth and the artist's own Chinese Dragon references were loosely used for the concept and imagery of the work.The event begins Project toadd 10OOO metres to theGreat Wall of China 1993 Gunpowder explosive event with the explosion of three hydrogen balloons in the air above the Brisbane River off South Bank Parklands, evoking the work of the Python. A glowing fuse drops from the sky and reaches the river (itself a serpentine form), traversing the waterway and its banks. It weaves above and below the water's surface like the tail of a giant undulating dragon, or like the Wagilag Sisters disappearing inside the body then reappearing again. Along its route the fuse encounters the Captain Cook Bridge, with its own snakelike arches, and continues on beyond the engineered arabesques of the major elevated roadways which parallel the river. The gleaming line of light ends its short but dramatic journey by creating a spiral around the blocky centre pylon of the Victoria Bridge. Cai's explosive gesture literally snakes amongst local myths and the ones he himself brings with him, intersecting the highway rampways and engineered bridges which represent contemporary Western society's urge to keep moving ahead. The spectacular finale suggests a ceremonial point for rejuvenation and reflection upon our place in the world at this moment-literally and culturally in midstream. Dana Friis-Hansen, Senior Curator, Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston,Texas,USA 1 CaiGuo Qiang, interview with Dana Friis-Hansen, 30 July, 1992 2 MargoNeale, Yiribana, The Art Gallery of New SouthWales, Sydney,1994, p.42 Born in China, lives and works in Tokyo, Japan A RT I s T s • EA s T A s I A I 59