Exhibition 'Cai Guo-Qiang ~ I Want to Believe' at the National Art Museum of China in Beijing for Olympics

Have you guys seen the stadiums in Beijing for the Olympics?? The Bird's Nest (National Stadium) or the National Aquatics Center? They're spectacular! And so is this! The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and The Center of International Cultural Exchange, Ministry of Culture, P.R.C. will present the Guggenheim's highly-acclaimed exhibition "Cai Guo-Qiang: I Want to Believe" at the National Art Museum of China in Beijing during the Olympics from August 19 to September 2, 2008 as an official event of the cultural Olympiad. The exhibition, which Newsweek hailed as "explosive -- and gorgeous," was the best attended visual arts show in the New York Guggenheim Museum's history (February 22 to May 28, 2008.) "Rarely has an artist packed a museum with so much visual excitement," according to ARTnews magazine (Apr. 08). The exhibition surveys the innovative body of work of Cai Guo-Qiang (pronounced tsai gwo chang) with 40 works from the 1980s to the present. The retrospective includes his signature gunpowder drawings, video projections of his explosion events, installations, and social projects. Cai is a core member of the creative team and Director of Visual and Special Effects for the opening and closing ceremonies of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. The exhibition at NAMOC will feature a new, 4-by-33-meter large-scale gunpowder drawing that relates to the work he has created for the Olympics, as well as a video documenting the August 8 opening events. This exhibition in Beijing is organized by the Center of International Cultural Exchange and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in collaboration with the National Art Museum of China, and is curated by Thomas Krens, Director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, and Alexandra Munroe, Senior Curator of Asian Art. Following its Beijing presentation, the exhibition will travel to the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in spring 2009. The Guggenheim Museum's catalogue will be translated and published by the People's Press, and features essays by Fan Di'an, Munroe, Wang Hui, David Joselit, and Miwon Kwon.

Original Article