WEBVTT

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CAI GUO-QIANG in

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In the twenty-first century

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My work is sometimes like the poppy flower

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It has this almost romantic side

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But yet, it also represents a poison

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Gun powder

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From its very essence, you can see

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so much of the power of the universe
how we came to be.

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You can express these grand ideas
about the cosmos

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Very epic and heroic,

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but at the same time
it's used for such destruction.

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Gun powder possesses a physical danger
for anyone who is near it.

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But with time,
you get to know the material.

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First you have to accept
that it's uncontrollable.

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And then, work with it.

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I've worked with the material so long,

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that I've gained an understanding
of how it works

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My way of doing it
is just to flow with the material.

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To let it take me where it wants me to go.

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So I continuously want it to
give me problems.

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Give me obstacles to overcome.

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This whole process of making drawing
is very much like lovemaking.

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From the very beginning of
laying down the paper,

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it's like laying down
the sheets on the bed.

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And it's a very long process.

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Always working towards a final goal.

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And all the time there's this feeling
that you just want it to explode.

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to finish.

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But you're afraid
that maybe it's too early,

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maybe it's not the best time yet,

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maybe you need to work on it
a little more.

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And then afterwards,
you either have great satisfaction

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or you have disappointment as to
your entire performance.

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You can talk all day about the ancient
philosophies and modern philosophies

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art history, criticism, theory,
subject matter, historical context,

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contemporary, post-modernism, form,
representation.

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All these things can be discussed

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but in the end,

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it's really this on sight performance,
so to speak,

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that really makes a work.

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What I'm using here is a sort of 
fold out sketchbook

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It's not so much a scrawl,
but traditionally it's

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always been used for people
to record their thoughts.

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Almost as in a journal, 
or a diary format.

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In Chinese,

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we actually say: 
''Reading a painting''

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Reading a picture

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Because it's actually page by page,
section by section

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That you're reading this.

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Not just looking at it.

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These 'folder books' are very similar in 
this aspect to the scrawls.

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The longhand scrawls are very traditional,
in Chinese painting.

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Here I like to show you what my father has
painted on silk.

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A very long scrawl.

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Sometimes I see my explosion projects 
almost like these scrawls.

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Ones you open it,

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it opens up the universe, in that it 
seems boundless.

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As the explosion project unfolds,
it's like opening the scrawl.

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But then it disappears.

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And yet, it's pregnant with all kinds 
of possibilities.

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What really influenced me the most, 
are these very tiny matchbox paintings

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that my father used to make.

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He would paint these small landscape 
paintings with his ink pen.

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I saved some of these from that time.

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When I was little and I would ask what 
he was painting.

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He might point at one of them 
and would say:

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''Ow, this is the sea of our hometown.''

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But then I would go back with him to 
our home village

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and it was nothing like that.

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From very early on I understood from
these that art is not about what you say

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It's about these other things 
that you don't say.

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I wouldn't say that the entire exhibition 
at MASS MoCA is

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like a long scrawls unfolding.

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It links to my past.

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And it's linked to my culture as well.

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When I first saw the exhibition space

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I felt that it was like a section of road

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A very wide road,
that has been transported here.

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Further extending the idea of this path,
or journey

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Is very much like taking a walk
along this path.

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In the main gallery,

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as the first car takes of

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tumbling through the air in a very 
dreamlike fashion

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it lands safely back on it's four 
wheels.

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Undamaged

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Unharmed

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Is it just the repetition, it goes
right back to the very first car again.

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The video in Times Square 
also borrows the image of the car bomb.

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This continues cycle suggest that 
something might or

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might not have happened.

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This illusion that we're seeing in front
of us

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Ever since September 11

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The idea of terrorism is ever so present.

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Always on our minds

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This work

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obviously has some direct reference 
to these conditions that we live in now.