Famed Firework Artist Cai Guo-Qiang

Shanny talks with Cortney Chaffin, an art historian at UWSP, and Ellen Larson, a PhD candidate at the University of Pittsburgh, about Cai Guo-Qiang.  Cai is a Chinese artist renowned for his firework art you have to see to believe.  We watched the documentary Sky Ladder, available on Netflix, which documented Cai's effort to complete an art piece he has worked on for decades.  We talk about what it takes to create firework art displays, the tension between art and propaganda, and whether seeing his work on film is a sufficient experience.   You don't need to know anything about Sky Ladder, or Chinese art, or Cai Guo-Qiang to appreciate our conversation!

Share your thoughts about the video on our Facebook page, www.facebook.com/NoCureforCuriosityPodcast.

Send comments to nocureforcuriosity@outlook.com.

Our intro music was written by UWSP music student Derek Carden and our logo is by artist and graphic designer Ryan Dreimiller.

Transcript

Shanny Luft: 0:08

Welcome to no cure for curiosity, a podcast to encourage and promote curiosity in the liberal arts. I am Shanny luft, a professor of religious studies and the Associate Dean of general education at the University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point. Today's episode is about the Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang who is world famous for his pyrotechnic art pieces. My guests are Courtney Chaffin and Ellen Larsen. They both recommended a documentary on Netflix called Sky Ladder: The Art of Cai Guo-Qiang which documents the artist's mesmerizing fireworks displays and his 20 year effort to create Sky Ladder, which is this image he carried for a firework display that was designed like a ladder that climbs hundreds of feet into the sky. You don't have to watch Sky Ladder before listening to this episode, but I hope our conversation today will inspire you to check it out. In the podcast, we talk about the line between art and propaganda. The value of experiencing art live versus watching it on a screen or printed in a book and the dozens of technicians and staff that are required to produce these massive firework displays that we talked about. We'll introduce Ellen Larsen during the conversation that starts in just a moment. But my first question was to Cortney Chaffin, she's a professor of Asian art history at UWSP. And her research interests focus on the materiality of death in ancient China and the rich array of fantastic hybrid animal imagery in early Chinese funerary art. My first question to Cortney was how she became interested in the topic of death and funerals in art.

Cortney Chaffin: 1:38

Honestly, I think this goes way back to my childhood, I can remember the first time I learned that we die. And I don't think that, you know, it was It wasn't like a topic anyone talked about. And then my great grandmother died. And I was in first grade and my parents, you know, picked me up from school and said, We're going to Louisville, your great grandmother has died. And I and I said, What do you mean, she's died? What does that mean? And it kind of was, I don't know, very traumatic for me. And I think ever since then, it was just like I was trying to figure out well, why do we die and how you know, I think wanting to study death and funerals is sort of my own way of figuring out how to cope with mortality.

Shanny Luft: 2:23

That's really fascinating. Thanks for sharing that. My other guest today is Ellen Larsen. Ellen, you are a curator, designer and writer as well as a PhD candidate at the University of Pittsburgh, your dissertation project, investigates domestic temporalities within the history of contemporary moving Image art from China. Ellen curates and presents, exhibitions, educational symposia, and other art events in China and the United States. Welcome, Ellen.

Ellen Larson: 2:52

Thank you. I'm so happy to be here.

Shanny Luft: 2:54

So Ellen, can you explain what domestic temporalities are?

Ellen Larson: 2:58

Sure. So my current is their dissertation project is looking at various regions of China, particularly the South, the South, West region, and northern regions of China. And I'm looking at specifically how these contemporary social conditions, social change, urban transformation, as well as regional histories and culture, how they inform ways in which artists think about and respond to time, and more broadly speaking, how people in general respond to time living in in these various parts of China.

Shanny Luft: 3:45

That's fantastic. Well, the reason I invited you both here, because you both have a podcast, and I want to talk about that a little later. But our main focus now is going to be on this documentary that we all saw, because Courtney and Ellen, you're experts in Chinese art and culture. Courtney, you recommended this documentary called Sky Ladder: The Art of Cai Guo-Qiang. How close was I?

Cortney Chaffin: 4:08

Cai Guo-Qiang

Shanny Luft: 4:09

Thai,

Cortney Chaffin: 4:10

Thai

Shanny Luft: 4:11

sigh, say it again, sigh.

Cortney Chaffin: 4:13

Yes. Sigh.

Shanny Luft: 4:15

Sigh. And then gwo.

Cortney Chaffin: 4:16

Gua.

Shanny Luft: 4:17

Gwa,

Cortney Chaffin: 4:17

Gua.

Shanny Luft: 4:20

Sigh gwa.

Cortney Chaffin: 4:22

Chang,

Shanny Luft: 4:23

Chung?

Cortney Chaffin: 4:23

Chang. Yep.

Shanny Luft: 4:24

All right. That's as close as I'm gonna get.

Ellen Larson: 4:27

That's pretty good.

Cortney Chaffin: 4:28

Yeah. So Shanny. I really want to ask you so you know, when I show this documentary in my general education classes, because it's one of my favorites, and Cai Guo-Qiang is one of my favorite contemporary artists. But I'm always really interested to find out, you know, what is the reaction of someone who maybe doesn't keep up with contemporary Chinese art? What did you think about the documentary? How did it move you? You know what really stood out to you?

Shanny Luft: 4:58

Thanks for that question. His firework displays. I actually didn't know fireworks could do the things he was doing. So part of it was, I was fascinated just technically, how do you make fireworks look like flowers, with stems and, and the kinds of colors he was using and the the way that he was kind of painting in the air. I had never seen anything like it, it was really remarkable. I was also fascinated with his story. So the two things I was really interested in talking to you about is one this art form, right that as far as I mean, he's the only person I've ever seen do anything like this before, and his interest in Fireworks. And he uses them in ways that I found unimaginably creative and interesting to do a firework display like he's doing, which I'm imagining costs hundreds of 1000s of dollars. These are like incredibly fancy, expensive, complicated projects. You have to get permits, and you have to have teams of people working together. He's not like a singular artist who's tying together fireworks himself into lighting them sort of in his backyard. He is more like the director of a movie where there are teams of people he works with and computer consultants. He's working in different countries. So he's working with different governments, there's lawyers and politics and paperwork. Just like how complicated this process is. I found really interesting.

Ellen Larson: 6:24

Yeah, and I think that's one of the really interesting things about artistic practice. If we're not involved in the day to day workings of a studio, right, we sort of think that artworks that we see in an exhibition, or online, they're sort of the result of like, this creative genius of this one artist, this one individual. But of course, that's not the case. Right? Like, what you're what you're talking about is, you know, these studios employ lots of different people. And you know, in China, it's everything from from somebody doing translation work, doing interview work, you know, like, sort of filing administrative stuff, and then others who, you know, are working on photography. And then you know, studios are also contracting out and hiring laborers. Even, you know, the artist, the very famous artist, Ai Weiwei, his sculptural works are created by sculptors, like very respected sculptors, rather, you know, then the artist and sitting out in his studio, just sort of like slaving away at his at his own work. But I think that it's also important for us to remember that like, this is not new, right? Even within the context of Euro American artistic practice, you know, like, if we think about Michelangelo, you know, Michelangelo had a studio, DaVinci had a studio. And so in many of these instances, you know, an apprentice would be painting the entire body of the figure, and then the master, you know, Michelangelo, or Rembrandt, or Da Vinci would come in, and then, you know, finish the face. So I think that it's interesting. And also important to remember that the the creation of these works, it is such an effort of collaboration, which I think the documentary does a really fantastic job of revealing for us, as you're pointing out.

Shanny Luft: 8:26

Right? Even though I was so touched by his personal story, it also made me reflect on the fact that the final product that you'd look at, was actually hundreds of people's work. But only one person gets acknowledged or credited or is seen as the visionary. Even the documentary kind of alludes to or gestures, or kind of, you spend a little bit of time with getting a sense of just how many people it takes to do this. Are those other people part of the art? Or is there a difference between kind of the artist and the people who are doing the technical part of it? I don't know. Does that? Is that something that art historians or scholars think about?

Ellen Larson: 9:05

Yeah, I mean, I think it's, it's kind of all of the above. I think that, you know, it's, of course, as teachers as educators or as, as, as scholars, as thinkers, you know, we're thinking about the the context in which this work is being made the relationship between the artist and the artists environment. In addition, I think that it's it's also perhaps important to acknowledge that these artists, you know, they're working with laborers with technicians with fireworks manufacturers, but within those particular contexts, they're helping contribute to a project, you know, but like they're not artists, right. So the artist is relying on their labor compensating them for their labor. You know, it's not like the artists studio is taking advantage. Have these workers, so they are contributing to the project within their own right. I feel like labor is an important thing for us to talk about. And labor, of course, is a part of the project. But when I watched the documentary, and Cai was in out, you know, on the rooftop, with the fireworks maker, and Wuhan, you know, like, I didn't see the fireworks maker, as an artist collaborator, I saw the fireworks maker as contributing, you know, his thinking his technology. And again, they're both they were on the roof, they were drawing out ideas, they were collaborating, but Cai, you know, he has is the one with the vision. And so he's able to effectively collaborate with other individuals and work together to produce what he's ultimately trying to achieve.

Shanny Luft: 10:58

Okay, that's really helpful. Courtney, you mentioned you show this documentary to your students, how do they respond to it? What do they think of it,

Cortney Chaffin: 11:06

In a similar way to how you respond to it, they also notice right away that, you know, Cai Guo-Qiang is working with a team. And they do ask questions about that. So, you know, similar to you, so does this mean that, you know, he's truly the artist behind this work? You know, so I'm what I tried to do was help them understand that, you know, Cai Guo-Qiang, he has the concept, right, he's the one who comes up with the concept for the work of art, and then brings in, you know, all of these collaborators to help them execute and, you know, make this come into fruition.

Shanny Luft: 11:46

Another thing that documentary brings up is the politics of China. It gets into a little bit what his childhood was like, and the rise of Mao and the difficult childhood that he had, and then also his continual work with the Chinese government. So Courtney, talk about that. What is his sort of reaction to people who criticize him? For working in China?

Cortney Chaffin: 12:10

Yeah, I think that's one of the most poignant moments and the documentary, because he responds and says, you know, it, you you only you're, he's only receiving criticism, because he's a Chinese artists working for Chinese government. And he makes this comparison with international artists who work for their governments for big events like the Olympics. So I think you mentioned Damien Hirst, and the project that he did,

Shanny Luft: 12:41

right for the London Olympics. Right?

Cortney Chaffin: 12:42

Yeah. So and I think, you know, that particular moment is one that I always hope my students are paying attention to. Because there's so much criticism of the Chinese government, in the media in the United States. And therefore, you know, students initially, I think, I agree with that criticism, like, yeah, why is he working for the government? You know, they see this as a bad thing. But I think, you know, you really need to sit and think about this for a little bit. And, you know, I thought, also Zhang Yi-Mou, was the director, that was also in the documentary, he says, [???], which means like, there's nothing we can do. There's, there's nothing we can do. Yeah, of course, we would love to have these freedoms that other people have, but we just don't. And so what do you expect us to do,

Ellen Larson: 13:31

you know, to reduce Chinese art as being responsible only for responding to, you know, current events or recent events in China. When, you know, in many ways, I think that these projects are, are being shaped and influenced by 1000s of years of history and material culture, I think that it's really a disservice to our own ability to, you know, understand and appreciate this rich culture, this, this, this history of artistic innovation. And I also think that China is often talked about within the context of, you know, issues of freedom of speech of censorship, right? But if we're only thinking about Chinese are looking at Chinese art, you know, within those contexts, you know, don't you think that that's also a form of censorship?

Shanny Luft: 14:31

Another thing I want to ask you about is I have never felt like I was disappointed in my television more than this documentary. I felt like you can't have a TV large enough to appreciate what you're looking at on the screen. It feels like you're trying to look at the Grand Canyon through a little window like the work is so much bigger than the TV that I have never felt so like seeing it on TV does not capture what the art actually is. I have seen the Mona Lisa in person, and I've seen it on a computer screen. They don't look different to me, like I don't have enough of an artistic eye to think seeing it in person. I can see something I could not see, in a photograph this guy's work. It did feel like seeing it on the screen was felt inferior. It felt like if you're not there experiencing it, you actually aren't really seeing what he's intending?

Ellen Larson: 15:26

Well, I think that you're getting into a really important point, which is scale and environment.

Shanny Luft: 15:33

Yes.

Ellen Larson: 15:33

Right. Like, which is something again, you know, people who present art within exhibition airy context, like that's what we're thinking about all the time. And so I think the Mona Lisa is a really good example. Because the Mona Lisa is like what like this big? Yeah. So you know, and not only if you're at the Louvre, you see it in Paris, you're always so far back, you know, that it's really the difference between seeing it in person in a crowd full of people and seeing it on your computer screen. You know, the relationship to scale is not so different that you do think of it as a similar experience. But with these firework shows, the scale so massive, and environment in terms of where these fireworks are being ignited is also really important. You know, of course, within the context of Sky Ladder, Quanzhou, his his hometown, you know, is really significant, right? It's like this coming home this, this opportunity for him to realize this project that he's been working on since 1994. Among, you know, his close family and friends, his studio, right, allowing his grandmother to be able to watch it, you know, all of those things are so important. I have seen one fireworks display in Chicago a few years ago. And it was I get the film. It absolutely does not do the fireworks display justice.

Cortney Chaffin: 17:07

We just did our podcast on the tomb of Lady Dai, which is a second century BCE tomb. And she was buried in these three beautifully painted nesting coffins. And I've been to the museum in Hunan and Changsha, where all of her materials are now exhibited. And I didn't realize until I saw those painted coffins in person, how exquisite they are, because the lacquer paint is actually built up in certain areas. So that you have these raised outlines, you know, that you you can, you can never see, and a photograph of that painting. So I think there are lots of those sorts of examples, even things that you never would have imagined, like it would look so different in person.

Ellen Larson: 17:54

Yeah. And I think that's one of the reasons why ties work is difficult to document and to understand if you don't experience it in person, because I think that the environment, and you know, the act of creating an explosion, that to me is the work. I think it's it's more about, you know, those moments of impermanence, thinking about the relationship between humans and nature, like I see his work is very Taoist. I wore my Taoist ring today to sort of belabor that point. So I think that he's interested in recognizing these impermanent relationships between ourselves and our natural environments. And, you know, thinking about change and and process and the marks that he's making on the paper as much as he's planning, there is still this really important element of spontaneity, I think, you know, things that that he sort of can't expect and happen based on this perfect combination of gunpowder, fire, and then what happens to the paper.

Cortney Chaffin: 19:13

Another point that I wanted to make earlier too based on what Ellen was talking about is, you know, looking at his work, you know, along with this, the Taoist aspect, I think that, you know, it's so important to see the the family connections, right that the Sky Ladder, for example, he tried this work four times on, you know, until he was finally successful, and the last time you know, it, he only had family and friends. He didn't want it to be advertised that he was doing this project. You know, he was doing it for his grandmother, who was 100 years old and died shortly after. And I was so moved by that, you know, when he sort of found his Why Why am I doing that? Sky Ladder. Why am I trying so hard on this project? And he realized it's for his grandmother. He was successful. And I think a lot of his works are rooted in sort of the Taoist philosophy that he learned from his grandmother. Right. She was a devout Taoist growing up, and he spent a lot of time with her. And you can see in the documentary how much he loves his grandmother, I, you know, I cry every time I watched the documentary, because I was also close with my grandmother. It's so moving. Yeah. So you know, he learned about Taoism from his grandmother. His work is rooted in the local, where he grew up the I mean, the use of gunpowder is based on where he grew up, right fireworks based on where he grew up, the fishing villages, all of that, right. So there's that real even though he's such a big artist, and he's an international artists, you can always see that local aspect.

Shanny Luft: 20:59

So the other reason, Ellen and Cortney, I wanted to have you on the podcast is because you both started a podcast called Of the Earth. And so I want you just to kind of talk a little bit about what inspired you to start a podcast and how it's going.

Cortney Chaffin: 21:10

We really started the podcast from many years of long conversations between Ellen and I about Chinese art. You know, I think one thing for both of us is, you know, especially I feel this way at UWSP, you know, there isn't another faculty member on campus that studies Chinese art, or that specializes in Chinese history. And so I often feel like, oh, who can I talk to you about this thing? You know, and Ellen, and I think really connected because she went on to graduate school. I mean, she lived in China did her master's degree in China. And so we were like, our go to people like, oh, you know, did you hear this about China? Because, you know, other people in our lives maybe are like, Oh, you're talking about China again. And so, you know, we were we were talking on the phone. I think we were talking on the phone, when we were like this could be such a great podcast, we should, you know, start making a list of topics that we could talk about. And we talked about it for, I think over a year before finally, the pandemic, we decided we we've just had we have to do this. Let's do it.

Shanny Luft: 22:27

What are the some of the topics you've already talked about the podcast? What's coming up? What can people look forward to?

Ellen Larson: 22:31

Yeah, so I we're first two episodes have a lot of overlap. The first episode explores the temporalities, of a contemporary artist named Cao Fei, particularly in relationship to a recent exhibition that she staged in Beijing. And then from that, we branched out and had a discussion about a 2000 year old mummy named Lady Dai, who is a specially beloved in all of Cortney's classes. So we were able to think about the relationship between these two women who live 2000 years apart, and the interesting connections between both of them. Moving forward, we have lots of exciting topics, we're thinking about utopia, what is Utopia mean? It within a Chinese context, both past and present. We were also thinking about some kind of Silk Road episode, especially in relationship to the recent Belt and Road Initiative launched by China since 2014 2015.

Shanny Luft: 23:50

And your podcast, there's like a video component as well. It's not just audio.

Ellen Larson: 23:55

Well, we have so the the the podcast itself, it's available anywhere you get your podcasts, but the the video component was an idea that we had to offer teasers or to sort of go behind the scenes. You know, like, as you can imagine, when you record a podcast, I mean, at least as the case for Cortney and me, we usually end up on the floor laughing at each other. So we we include a few snippets, family friendly snippets of sort of the behind the scenes stuff that happens.

Shanny Luft: 24:34

The, outtakes

Ellen Larson: 24:35

Yeah.

Shanny Luft: 24:37

That's fantastic. Well, the the parts that I've listened to I love your podcast. I'm fascinated by it, Cortney. I've talked to students who have taken your classes, and I've heard so many positive complimentary things from students whose minds were opened and eyes were open to what you teach. Ellen is an example of that. But I've talked to dozens of other students in my classes who've told me how much they enjoy taking your classes.

Ellen Larson: 25:00

Thank you. Well, I think, you know, this is part of another reason why we wanted to do this podcast is because especially when you, you know, look at American media, it's all about Chinese government and Chinese government is bad. And so when, you know, I even see, for example, people on Facebook that I that I know, posting anti China memes, and I feel like they don't really understand those anti China memes. And, you know, number one, but number two, I think there's also, you know, people aren't looking deep enough to really see that China is not just Chinese government. China is 5000 years of human history. It's culture. It's about family, like we were talking about with Cai's work, right. Its religion, its philosophy, all things that we can learn from in appreciate just, you know, being part of the human family. And so I hope that people will tune in maybe to, um, learn a little bit more about China.

Shanny Luft: 26:05

Cortney Chaffin and Ellen Larson, thank you so much for joining me to talk about Sky Ladder, as well as art in China and your podcast. Congratulations. It's been a fantastic conversation. I really enjoyed watching this documentary and it's been a pleasure to talk to you with

Ellen Larson: 26:19

thanks so much, Shanny.

Cortney Chaffin: 26:20

Thank you.

Shanny Luft: 26:22

I hope you enjoyed my chat with Ellen Larson, a curator, designer and writer as well as a PhD candidate at the University of Pittsburgh. And Cortney Chaffin, a professor of Asian art history at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. Please check out Ellen and Cortney's podcast on Chinese art Of the Earth, which is available wherever you listen to podcasts. If you do check out Sky Ladder on Netflix, come to my Facebook page. no cure for curiosity, let me know what you think of it. You can also drop me an email at nocureforcuriosity@outlook.com. Our snappy theme song was written by a UWSP music student Derek Cardin, and our logo was designed by artist and graphic designer Ryan Dreimiller. Links to their work is available in the show notes to this episode. We'll be back in two weeks with a Halloween inspired episode of no cure for curiosity.

Gretel Stock: 27:12

This podcast is brought to you by University College at University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. Our mission is to provide coordinated, intentional, and inclusive services and opportunities through our core values of connecting, supporting, collaborating, and engaging. Learn more about UW-Stevens Point and all our programs at uwsp.edu.