Orville Schell, Arthur Ross Director of the Asia Societys Center on U.S.-China Relations, reviews Cai Guo-Qiangs new exhibit at the Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art. One of Chinas best known and most globally celebrated artists, Cai was about to take over the museum for a retrospective of his drawings, sculptures, videos, paintings, installations, and signature gunpowder drawings. The show is titled The Ninth Wave, after an oil painting from 1850 by the Russian artist Ivan Aivazovsky, which depicts human survivors clinging to the wreckage of a sailing ship in a storm-tossed sea. While this work suggests mans helplessness in the face of natures relentless power, Cais exhibit suggests an ironic thematic reversal: natures state of helplessness in the face of modern mans relentless, Promethean drive to progress. - The New Yorker
Posted on: Mon, 06 Oct 2014 17:15:16 +0000
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