Sky Ladder

Name: Diem Pham

Class: Art Orientation

Professor: Angel Adame

[pic 1]

1. Fireworks: Sky Ladder
2. Artist: Cai Guo-Qiang
3. Date: June 15, 2015.
4. Medium: quick burning fuses and gold fireworks.
5. Size: 500 meters (1650 feet) long, burned approximately 2 minutes 30 seconds
6. Location: Huiyu Island Harbour, Quanzhou, China. 
7. Website: http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2015/08/sky-ladder-cai-guo-qiang/ (the 6th image)

A piece of art could come in various forms of displaying. It could be a painting, a sculptor, a photograph, a monument, a sheet of music, etc. Among these, there is an interesting type of art that made out of a very special material: gunpowder. It requires a lot of techniques and experiences to achieve the desired colors and patterns in fireworks. However, there is an amazing China artist, who has had significant contributions to the history of gunpowder, and to the world, Cai Guo-Qiang.

Cai Guo-Qiang was born in 1957 in Quanzhou City, Fujian Province, China. During his early life, he was trained and had been working with different mediums of art, included drawing, installation, video, and performance art. Later, he found his interest in using the properties of gunpowder in his drawings when he lived in Japan from 1986 to 1995. Cai was best known as the Director of Visual and Special Effects for the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. Especially, he “was one of five Laureates for the prestigious Praemiun Imperiale, an award that recognize lifetime achievement in the arts in categories not covered by the Nobel Prize” in 2012. (1) Among his many solo exhibitions and projects that have been performed around the world, the “Sky Ladder”, which was performed in June 15th, 2015, was the one that took him the longest time to bring his idea to life.  In 1994, Cai said before his first attempt, “This is where I want to make a ladder to connect the Earth to the universe”. (2) However, the project failed because of bad weather in China the first time. It also could not be done due to post 9/11 security concerns in Shanghai in 2001, or due to the risk of forest fires in Los Angeles in 2012. Until June 15th, 2015, two decades from the first time he had tried, a fiery ladder filled with gunpowder, miraculously flaming and floating in about two and a half minutes above the earth.