{"id":80014,"date":"2025-09-23T02:43:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T02:43:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/80014\/"},"modified":"2025-09-23T02:43:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T02:43:09","slug":"cai-guo-qiang-under-fire-for-controversial-pyrotechnic-show-in-tibet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/80014\/","title":{"rendered":"Cai Guo-Qiang Under Fire for Controversial Pyrotechnic Show in Tibet"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tA fireworks show staged by Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang<\/a>\u00a0at the base of the Himalayas in Tibet has led to stinging criticism online. Amid the outcry, both the artist and Arc\u2019teryx, the outdoor apparel brand that sponsored the project, issued apologies.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Rising Dragon, a piece related to Cai\u2019s 1989 gunpowder drawing Ascending Dragon: Project for Extraterrestrials No. 2,\u00a0featured fireworks that emitted colored smoke in dramatic patterns on a plateau in Shigatse, a city in China\u2019s Tibet Autonomous Region. The performance was staged at an elevation some 18,000 feet above sea level.<\/p>\n

\t\tRelated Articles<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"A<\/p>\n

\n\tCriticism mounted after pictures and video made their way online and prompted questions about environmental concerns raised by the artwork, leading Chinese authorities to address the matter. \u201cThe Shigatse party committee and government take the matter seriously and have set up an investigation team to send to the site immediately to investigate,\u201d the city\u2019s local communist party committee said in a statement, according to a report<\/a> by CNN.<\/p>\n

\n\tArc\u2019teryx, a sportwear company started in Canada and held under Chinese ownership since a sale in 2019, issued an apology on Instagram reading: \u201cThis event was in direct opposition to our commitment to outdoor spaces, who we are, and who we want to be for our people and our community. We are deeply disappointed that this happened and apologize, full stop.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tFor his part, Cai, the artist, issued a statement reading: \u201cMy studio and I attach great importance to this and humbly accept all criticism of our artistic creation on the plateau with a modest heart and sincerely thank you for your concern and reminders.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCai\u2019s work has been the subject of controversy before, most recently when reports of injuries and complaints of noise and debris followed a performance of his in Los Angeles as part of last year\u2019s Getty-affiliated Pacific Standard Time initiative. As reported<\/a> in the Los Angeles Times, \u201cresidents in the surrounding South L.A. neighborhood said they thought bombs were exploding, and the smoke that wafted into their streets unsettled them, forcing some to close windows and leading others to believe that they were in the midst of an emergency.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn that same article, Cai said \u201cthere were no malfunctions with the fireworks\u201d but also that he was \u201cdeeply uneasy and apologetic\u201d\u00a0about the repercussions of his work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A fireworks show staged by Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang\u00a0at the base of the Himalayas in Tibet has led…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":80015,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[267],"tags":[365,362,363,364,53725,366,18,117,19,17],"class_list":{"0":"post-80014","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-artsdesign","12":"tag-cai-guo-qiang","13":"tag-design","14":"tag-eire","15":"tag-entertainment","16":"tag-ie","17":"tag-ireland"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80014\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}