Tonight So Lovely

Tonight So Lovely parallels scenes of a firework display that Cai Guo-Qiang organised to celebrate the Asia-Pacific Conference in Shanghai in October 2001 with images of Chinese police officers clearing streets of citizens to coincide with the conference. The work of Cai Guo-Qiang incorporates such themes as national and cultural identity, intercultural exchange, spirituality -especially Oriental philosophy -and the power of nature. In his hands, gunpowder does not acquire a negative connotation (destruction, violence), but is once more related to its original function: communication. At the same time he is also interested in the constructive and deconstructive aspects of gunpowder, in the way in which destruction can also be (re)creative.