Nothing typifies the toweringly celestial ambition of the Chinese contemporary artist Cai Guo-Qiang than his “sky ladder”, a project over 20 years in the making. His jaw-dropping pyrotechnic concept involves a double-stranded firework connective wire suspended from a hot air balloon at night, with horizontal wires linking like rungs: when the blue touch paper is lit, a fiery spirit ladder appears to ascend infinitely into the darkness. It is transient and transcendental, like so many of Cai’s site-specific concepts, and like the Apollo spaceshots, many attempts were unsuccessful – including one in 1994 in Bath, of all places, which was cancelled due to rain. (Did anyone explain to the artist what the weather was like over here?)
This documentary about his work – directed by Kevin Macdonald and produced by Wendi Murdoch – is fascinating. I actually found his other pyro happenings more interesting than the Sky Ladder, such as his daytime events, with bursts of multicoloured smoke instead of firebursts. His other creations, such as the airborne fighting dogs in Head On, are extraordinary.
Cai’s father was a gifted traditional painter and calligrapher who was oppressed during the cultural revolution, and Cai is clearly driven by some need to re-establish family honour, though he has a complex relationship with the Chinese state. He became a national megastar by devising the fireworks for the 2008 Beijing Olympics opening ceremony, but some thought he had sold out with a cheesier national event at the stadium: the 2014 Apec economic leaders’ forum. Even now, he has to take criticism from state sponsors, who say things like: “Mao taught us to be pragmatic and realistic.”
A very stimulating introduction to this extraordinary talent.
