Cai Guo-Qiang, the Chinese artist for whom the sky is the actual limit, gets grounded for a new exhibit in Tokyo.
“Ramble in the Cosmos —From ‘Primeval Fireball’ Onward” at the National Art Center, Tokyo (NACT) features formative projects in Cai’s career trajectory. Curator Eriko Osaka built the show around a 1991 exhibit Cai showed in Japan during the nearly nine years he lived in the country before he relocated to New York. At “Primeval Fireball,” seven folding screen panels showed yet-to-be-realized projects, which fanned out as if from a central Big Bang. Some of the panels are gathered again here, along with new colored gunpowder pieces, in the same formation.
Though the panels are the thematic centerpiece, it’s the large LED light installation based on Cai’s 2019 work “Encounter with the Unknown” that’s the most eye-catching. The objects — UFOs, Einstein’s face, rockets and alien figures — oscillate and light up on a timed sequence, shimmering and turning red, mimicking the sensation of a fireworks show.