Internationally renowned contemporary artist Cai Guo-Qiang’s large-scale solo exhibition, Ramble in the Cosmos – From Primeval Fireball Onward, will open on June 29, 2023, at the National Art Center, Tokyo (NACT, Director General: Eriko Osaka). The exhibition is co-organized by the NACT and Saint Laurent. The involvement in organizing Cai Guo-Qiang’s exhibition marks the latest instance of Saint Laurent’s ongoing mission, under the initiative of Anthony Vaccarello, to support excellence in various creative fields including visual arts, cinema, and music.
For decades, Cai has been fascinated by the wider universe and the unseen world, including feng shui, astrology, and the ancient Eastern philosophies behind them. He also holds a long term interest in science and technology as contemporary approaches to understanding our infinite universe. His work also reveals the influences of sensitive reflections on contemporary social issues. Cai creatively uses gunpowder as his artistic medium. His large-scale paintings, installations, and outdoor explosion projects are renowned worldwide and convey a grand worldview that is both mythological and anthropological.
Cai’s dialogue with the universe and the unseen world will serve as a core theme for the exhibition, revealing itself through a presentation of the artist’s early works from China, followed by those from his formative years in Japan, then works made during his subsequent time in the United States and his journey onto the world stage–displaying a rich artistic journey whose growth mirrors the expansion of the universe.
