Gunpowder on paper

50 x 90 cm. 19 5/8 x 35 3/8 in.

Titled in English and Chinese， signed in Pinyin “Cai Guo Qiang”， dated “1990” and inscribed the location in Chinese on lower right

Exhibited：
Fukuoka City Hall and Nagahama Port， Fukuoka， Japan. Museum City Tenjin ’90： Circulation of Sensibility： Visual City， Functiong Art， Sept. 17–Nov. 4. 1990.

As a leading figure of Chinese contemporary art， Cai Guo-qiang has adhered to creating art with gunpowder. Through the marks of the blazing gunpowder left on paper， he communicates with the world. Gunpowder is one of four great inventions of ancient China， and Cai’s adherence is regarded as a tribute to tradition. He pioneered a unique language and style in the international art scene with the use of western abstract art concept to present ancient eastern civilisation.
In 1989， Cai became intrigued by astrophysics. Inspired by theories in Stephen Hawking’s best-selling book A Brief History of Time， he began his iconic series of Project for Extraterrestrials. The objective of the series is to connect the visible to the invisible world， building a bridge of communication for human， nature and the universe. Cai debuted his first explosion project， Human Abode： Projects for Extraterrestrials No. 1 in ‘89 Tama River Fussa Outdoor Art Exhibition’ in Tokyo， and has since continued working on the series.
I am an Extraterrestrial： Project for Extraterrestrials No. 4 is a project commissioned by the bi-annual ‘Museum City Tenjin’ exhibition in Japan. The explosion took place in October， 1990 on an empty ground in Fukuoka. Cao for the first time explicitly used of a piece of controversial evidence for extraterrestrial’s existence - the crop circle pattern discovered in Wiltshire， Britain that year. The sketch of the project is 2m long， and was immediately acquired by Fukuoka Asian Art Museum afterwards. This piece has a angle of view different from Human Abode： Project for Extraterrestrials No. 1 and Ascending Dragon： Project for Extraterrestrials No. 2. For the first time， the artist adopted a bird-eye view， naturally that of an ET. The artist intended to communicate with ETs with the crop circle pattern as a language， and the explosion represents a moment of human-universe unification. This piece is one of the sketches of the No. 4 project. It faithfully records the artist’s creative intentions， and the key trial stage when the artist changed the angle of view in his works， which are significant proofs of the artist’s creations while he was in Japan.

Price estimate:
HKD： 300,000 - 400,000
USD： 38,600 - 51,500

Auction Result:
HKD: 354,000