Cai Guo-Qiang: Odyssey and Homecoming

Concurring with the 600 year anniversary of the Forbidden City’s founding, this is the first ever contemporary art exhibition at the Palace. The show brings together more than 180 gunpowder paintings and other works which embody a force that transcends the two-dimensional plane to engage with society and nature.

Cai (b. 1957, Quanzhou, China) began to experiment with gunpowder in his hometown, and continued exploring its properties while living in Japan from 1986 to 1995, which led to the development of his signature outdoor explosion events. Drawing upon Eastern philosophy and contemporary social issues as a conceptual basis, his often site-specific artworks respond to culture and history and establish an exchange between viewers and the larger universe around them