Cai Guo-Qiang, an internationally renowned Chinese artist known for his explosive works and visionary installations, has also left a significant mark in Italy.
For the VI edition of Art to Art, ha realizzato l’UMoCA – Under Museum of Contemporary Art a Colle Val d’Elsa, inaugurating it with an exhibition dedicated to Tsai Chin, one of the most influential figures in contemporary art criticism in China and Taiwan.
In 2005, on the occasion of the tenth edition of Art at Art, ha invitato l’artista Jennifer Wen Ma to exhibit under the bridge's arches with the project Aeolian Garden. In 2010, however, he curated the exhibition Colour Still by Kiki Smith presso l’UMoCA.
Following a renovation in 2022, the museum continued to host important exhibitions curated by Cai Guo-Qiang, including those by Mario and Marisa Merz, Mimmo Paladino, Loris Cecchini and, more recently, Nel futuro acceso/spento by Tobias Rehberger, opened in September 2024.
Cai Guo-Qiang He was born in 1957 in Quang Zhou in Fujian (South China). He studied set design at the Shanghai Theatre School. He moved to Tokyo in 1986 and from there moved to New York in 1995, where he still resides. He began exhibiting in China in the mid-1980s, but his work took shape during his stay in Japan in the early 1990s. Deeply connected to his culture of origin, he continues to use materials, symbolic forms, and concepts that characterise it: fireworks (the province of Fujian is known for this type of production), the dragon and the boat, Taoism. He has exhibited in the most important Asian, American and European museums: from the Setagaya Art Museum in Tokyo to the Taiwan Museum of Art, from the Kunsthalle in Vienna to the Fondation Cartier in Paris with solo and group exhibitions, such as those at the Guggenheim in New York and the Moderna Museet in Stockholm. He has also participated in the most important exhibitions such as the biennials of Johannesburg, Venice (where he received an award in 1999), Seoul, Sao Paulo, Santa Fe and Whitney.