Cai Guo-Qiang: Taoist?

      Cai Guo-Qiang, the China born but transplanted to New York artist, has been getting a lot of attention of late: the big Guggenheim show (I saw most of this a few weeks ago while they were still installing part of it...)  the New Yorker piece; the NYT Sunday Magazine piece.  The man is at the top of his game.  I was struck, however, by this article (ht: CDT) in The Art Newspaper, with the great title: "I am Eternally Optimistic: I am Chinese."  That brought several thoughts to mind.

     First, while I was wandering around the Guggenheim (I had missed his work when he was in my neighborhood, at Mass MoCA, a few years ago), I was taken with his use of gunpowder (I really liked his "Project to Extend the Great Wall of China by 10,000 meters").  I was wondering how his sensibilities might reflect Taoism or Confucianism (that is my job, after all) but could not discern too much from the exhibition labels, save a vague reference to the natural ebb and flow and balance of things in a yin-yang sort of way (though he did not, if I remember correctly, actually cite yin and yang).  Then, this passage jumped out of the Art Newspaper article:

TAN: In your work, you deal constantly with the ephemeral. One year of work can disappear in 15 seconds. Do you ever feel frustrated by this?

CG-Q: I feel good with the volatile nature of gunpowder; I am looking for the unchanging through the always changing. Nature always changes but the fact of change—or evolution—never does. I also associate it with the discipline and spontaneity of calligraphy, that most honoured Chinese art form. In calligraphy the artist is a “perpetual amateur”. This is the model I identify with as an artist.

     His gunpowder work, really something like pyrotechnic performance art, draws our attention to the ephemeral, the volatile and the spontaneous that surrounds us.  In a way, it is all about Way.  In reminds me of Chuang Tzu:

If you're all transformation, you're free of permanence. (100)

     Which might be best explicated by the story of the man facing death, the ultimate transformation.  When asked by a friend if he resented his physical demise, he responded by embracing the moment he was in and the changes he was experiencing:

"No, why should I resent it?" replied Adept Cart.  "If my left arm's transformed into a rooster, I'll just go looking for night's end.  If my right arm's transformed into a crossbow, I'll just go looking for owls to roast.  And if my butt's transformed into a pair of wheels and my spirit's transformed into a horse, I'll just ride away!  I'd never need a cart again. (92)

      In a sense, in the expanse of Way our lives are little more than the momentary flash of gunpowder.  Each has its time of existence, each passes away, some faster, some slower, each unfolding, rising and falling, in its own unique pattern.  Perhaps Cai is not a self-conscious Taoist, but his work is certainly open to a Taoist interpretation.

      But what about the title of the Art Newspaper piece?  It comes from this exchange:

TAN: You are a consummate experimentalist who has combined traditional materials and methods from the east (from the historical and living cultural traditions of both China and Japan) with strategies from western art history. How important are these Chinese traditions for you?

CG-Q: Just like western art is important to westerners, Chinese traditions are important to me. However, while they are my origins and foundation, they are not my main purpose in making contemporary art. The main purpose in making art is to have fun and to redefine the nature of objects. Where are the limits when an object becomes a work of art? Making contemporary art can throw up obstacles but it does not worry me. I am eternally optimistic; I am Chinese.

      Wow!  What an assertion.  Is Chinese-ness necessarily optimisitic?  Or, another way to ask the question: what about Chinese-ness is optimistic?

      I think Taoism is optimistic.  In encouraging us to give up our expectations and desires and just let Way unfold as it will, philosophical Taoism offers a certain salvation.  Your life will be better if you let go, if you yield to circumstances.  That is not to say that there will be no bad in your life, just that the balance of good and bad, and your ability to accept changes from one to another as they come, will liberate you from fear and anxiety and frustration.  "In yielding is completion," the Tao Te Ching says.

    I imagine some might want to push back and say that Taoism transcends or sidesteps or simply disengages from the issue of optimism or pessimism.  But the image of Chuang Tzu laughing always comes back to my mind:

Running around accusing others is not as good as laughing, and enjoying a good laugh is not as good as going along with things (Watson 88-89).

     He is telling us, ultimately, to just go along with things, but a good laugh gets you half the way there.  That strikes me as optimistic.

     Confucianism is optimistic as well.  Although The Master himself expresses a certain frustration at being ignored by those in power, he keeps at it, working to encourage others to create Humanity in the world, because he believes that such effort can make a difference.  People can learn how to do good.  Maybe not every single person, but enough to transform the world for the better.   Mencius is much more obviously optimistic, with his notion of innately good human nature.

      If Cai Guo-Qiang is eternally optimistic because he is Chinese, he is Chinese in a Taoist and Confucian sort of way - more Taoist, I suspect. 

      Needless to say, Legalists are not optimistic; so, maybe, by these lights, they aren't really Chinese?

UPDATE: commenter Jeff sends along this link to a video of Cai's Guggenheim retrospective.  Thanks, Jeff.

Comments

[isha]

Now I understand even more why Mao's Cultural Revolution is a necessary, even though cruel step to unite China and rejuvenate this old and desolate civilization. Before 1949, China is a pile of loose sand and a door step of nations that everybody is welcome to step upon. I used to wonder why that was possible given that the aggressive nations, even Japan never have the manpower to actually occupy China, not to say manage it, as long as China could put up a decent resistance. Now I know, with people ( a whole class of them ) like Cai Gua-Qiang, the so-called intellectuals, that are actively destroy ( deconstruct, whatever ) the symbol of the nation, no wonder China were weak. These weaknesses of China could be very attractive, even artistically by the outsiders.

Want to destroy a nation? First destroy its history, destroy its identity, and destroy its sense of shame. The rest is just cake walking. It can be more effective than the barrel of a gun, or carrier, or the Bomb. That is why the trashes Cai produced are so much valued by the West and Japan. They know what they are paying for.

Isha

[Sam]

So....you don't like Cai because he is not a Chinese nationalist? Is that it?

[Isha]

"In this work, Cai deconstruct the meaning of the Great Wall of China. He pretended to extend the wall, but actually he destroyed it by fire, smoke and the collaboration of the people who have different backgrounds. As a conclusion, Cai deconstructed the meaning of the wall and exposed the meaninglessness of wall which separates the people."

Isn't it quite clear why Cai is rewarded?

I found long ago, " deconstruction" of any national culture except one is very much popular in the American campuses. Why it is so? You know it as well as I do. But one can't discuss it in polite society.

Thought control by the few is almost a complete success story here...

Isha

[Isha]

"The fire slithered along the ground with dignity such as a dragon. It took 15 minutes to reach the end of the fuse in the snowy mountain. This project was achieved by many local Chinese people, 50 Japanese collaborators, 40,000 audiences, critic and Chinese and Japanese politicians.
The fire slithered along the ground with dignity such as a dragon. It took 15 minutes to reach the end of the fuse in the snowy mountain. This project was achieved by many local Chinese people, 50 Japanese collaborators, 40,000 audiences, critic and Chinese and Japanese politicians.

...

In this work, Cai deconstruct the meaning of the Great Wall of China.
This is a real collaboration and at least, this project succeeded in removing the emotional wall between two countries, China and Japan."

1. My comment on this:

What kind of Chinese he is? He is Chinese alright. China is one fifth of humanity and has all kinds of people. He is certainly similiar to this guy: Wang Jingwei
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Jingwei

a. What he is trying to "decontruct"? The Great Wall!
b. What is the fault of Great Wall? It separate peoples, in this case Chinese and Japanese?
c. Whose built the Great Wall? you should know...
d. What Great Wall simbolize? You should know... in case you don't... here is the clue...
"With our very flesh and blood,
Let us build our new Great Wall!
The peoples of China are in the most critical time,
Everybody must roar his defiance.
Arise!
Arise!
Arise!
Millions of hearts with one mind,
Brave the enemy's gunfire, March on!"

http://www.geocities.com/ccparty2002/patriot.html

I don't care whether he is a Chinese nationalist or not. There is plenty of Chinese artists living overseas...there are ones drawing pictures on NY subway station and got killed by local gangs...they didn't sell their souls for a piece of bread, they keeps their sense of shame...

Cai just don't have it... he might be a taoist... follow the trends, follow the clients' hint, follow the money and fame, just like Wang Jingwei, follow the conquerer...

Isha

[Sam]

But, of course, Mao Zedong was very, very much more destructive of Chinese culture than Cai will ever be.

[isha]

we agree to disagree...

[Sam]

But truly now, how many deaths of Chinese people has Cai really been responsible for? Mao was responsible for millions and millions of dead Chinese people. Doesn't get much worse than that, does it?

[isha]

Comparing Mao and Cai is not reasoned argument ... it does make sense for West's favoring Cai and and belaboring Mao, though. He made their comfortable world uncomfortable ...

Isha

[Sam]

But you brought Mao into the conversation in the very first comment.... You made Mao into the hero versus Cai the supposed traitor. But I agree, the comparison is strained. Mao was a killer of Chinese, Cai is not.

[Jeff]

Here's a great video from the Cai Gugenheim exhibit:

http://www.scribemedia.org/2008/03/06/cai-guo-qiang/

[Sam]

Jeff,
Thanks for the link. Great stuff. I will add it to the post.

[isha]

" Mao was a killer of Chinese, Cai is not"...Could we say, " Washington and Lincolon were killers of Americans"?

If we are going to discuss historical figures in such terms, all the discussions become meaningless.

Isha

[Sam]

Mao's leadership of the CCP during the revolution, before 1949, can be compared to Washington and Lincoln, and the deaths that were suffered in all of those cases can be understood in terms of war and civil war. But nothing Washington or Lincoln did comes even close to the utterly unnecessary killing of the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution.
Why do you feel it necessary to defend Mao's Great Leap and Cultural Revolution? Can't a Chinese nationalism be built precisely on a critique of Mao's obvious historical failures? That is what the CCP itself tries to do.

[isha]

1.

On "Mao's Great Leap ": What is the agenda then for China (the agenda for China, now) was industrialization, which China has zero and steel production was MUCh lower than the Ching dynasty and China was surrounded by hostile power. China had NO capital, what was left from the invasions, civil wars were taken away to Taiwan. (Gold and hard currency). What Mao was doing was the the peasant mobilization. The making of steel in the backyard was not an effective way to make steel but it did mobilized and educated the rural population. Mao also spread the elementary education in the countryside. Therefore, after the opening up, the rural township enterprises mushroomed. So, the economic boom in Tang’s time didn't happen in the vacuum.

As one who have studies developmental theories, please tell me, after the WWII, which large agriarian society succeeded in the transformation to industrial society? Why these third world countries keep on having economic bankruptcies? Why they are still be plundered? Invaded? Looted? Raped? Humiliated?

They didn't transform themselves into industrial society and they didn't have their Maos.

It is very easy to belittle Mao's generation's struggle and strive. But look at the achievements, it is not much comparing with imperialist powers, but comparing with other semi-colonial economies, in Mao's time, China's established a heavy industry, built trucks, cars, tanks, ships even such things as N-bomb, N-sub, missile, satellite. (It was all done in Mao's time rather than Teng's time)According to the memorials published now, a lot of basic scientific research was also done in Mao's time.

Look at the history of industrialization around the world, which countries wasn't done with bloody, messy means? The only differences between China and the big powers is that the big powers inflicted the harm to other people around the world (which they regarded as sub-human, anyway), and in China the price was paid by its own people.

Isha

[isha]

2.

As for commenting on Cultural Revolution, it is basically beyond my capacity to comment. ... just some thoughts...

a.

It was a revolution ... it was a cultural transformation ...

b.

It was bloody, just like French revolutions and Russian revolution ... Luckily for U.S. you don't have a revolution... the vast " empty " continental expansion did the trick

c.

USSR didn't have their CR, therefore the ruling elite was ruling the country the country like feudal lords, therefore it passed away. Pre-CR, China copied Soviet system, Mao recognized the danger of the system then.

d.

Cultural Revolution would a legacy for China's future development, considering the current situation.

e.

The real understand of the CR have to wait for the future historians ... when the dust, emotions and agendas settles down.

Isha