Its been a while, and this marks then end of the most recent radio silence!

There has been a lot of talk about Cai Guo-Qiang thanks to his incredible retrospective at the Guggenheim in NYC.  I was fortunate enough to see it in person, and truly it is difficult to describe the awe of being in the presence of such drammatic and powerful work.  Take a look and you’ll see what I mean. 

Please read WMMNA’s post about it. Loads of good stuff can be found on the artist’s site and wikipedia.

My other guest artist today is Yves Klein.  I recall seeing a retrospective of his genius work at the Centre Pompidou in September 2006. I was struck by the scope of this man’s short by incredibly prolific career. That and the fact that regardless of whether he held a flamethrower or a paintbrush, his hair was perfectly manicured, his shirt tucked in and contained by his very smart waistcoat -- and then there’s the bow-tie…

He is perhaps best known for developing International Klein Blue and the paintings he created with it. However, I would rather like to focus on his fire paintings and sculptures. 

For further reading/viewing: A guide to his lifes work in french and english. And of course -- Wikipedia and flickr!

Both artists have a love affair with spectacle. Their work is the product of live performances -- where they are simultaneously directors, producers and actors. Their final works are captured not by the lens of a camera -- but rather burnt into the canvas. By using fire to produce their work, they create juxtapositions between its destructive power and the gentle poetry of the images; between the exposed naked bodies and the intensity of the flame; and between the animation of the elemental force, and the resulting stilled results of flames on canvas.

The artists act as catalysts transmuting the flickering energy into one-off containments of its beauty. They are separated by time, but joined in methodologies, media, and an obsession with the act of creation -- through an element most often associated with destruction.

Cai Guo-Qiang’s work:

Some ‘making of’ videos of his Gunpowder drawings, and Explosion Events:

And a few more images:

 
Yves Klein’s work:
Some great video’s of Yves Klein doing his thing:

And a few more images: