Cai Guo-Qiang's Odyssey: The trip to get to Odyssey.

This week, I have had  the pleasure of volunteering to help Cai Guo-Qiang create his site-specific work, Odyssey, for the Museum of Fine Arts-Houston (MFAH). There were 4 days of work/volunteering involved. I got to cut stencils for use in the work:




Warehouse workspace, with test pieces in the foreground.

 
For those of  you who do not know, Cai Guo-Qiang is a versatile artist. One of the many things he does is create gunpowder "drawings"... He is internationally known, and quite a big deal for the MFAH to get an artist of his caliber to create the work that will surround the China arts gallery... and personally, quite a big deal for me to be allowed to volunteer.




Cutting the stencils from the line art.



That is me on the right, cutting stencils.

 I have uploaded some video to Vimeo, where you can see both the sketch, and a test "ignition" for the work:

The Sketch

TEST IGNITION

Test panel (see video).


...Tonight is the big "Ignition"... over 200 people lined up to see it, and I get to be one of them. I will try and shoot some video.

(UPDATE 10/9/10: I got to see the "ignition of the huge work" ...which was awesome, however, when I went to take the first photo, the camera said "battery dead" ...total fail. )

You can see the explosion HERE.