Cai Guo-Qiang

Cai Guo-Qiang is a living icon, an Old Master of our time. His pioneering firework events and explosion paintings have brought Cai (and gunpowder) to the summit of the contemporary art world. Cai first experimented with explosives in the 1980s as a young Chinese artist living in Japan. He merged his skill as a painter with the lawless mark of explosion by firing rockets at his canvases and lighting gunpowder from underneath them – a technique he still uses today. Invented in China by ancient alchemists, gunpowder is a symbol of both celebration and destruction. It's an integral part of traditions in Chinese celebration but also evokes the violence of The Cultural Revolution that Cai grew up in. Beyond history, Cai has a spiritual connection to gunpowder: "I do get somewhat nervous, but in the moment of ignition, it seems to go beyond nerves, becoming an energy that is sudden, spiritual and also cosmic. A feeling of the invisible world is sparked within that instant."

Over the decades, Cai's rise to international fame has seen him work with many different organisations, from countless public museums and universities to the global streaming giant Netflix. Cai has no unworthy audience: the passer-by, the multi-millionaire collector and the Netflix subscriber are all equally valued. In 2008, this approach led to criticism of his collaboration with the Chinese government on the Olympic Ceremony. Some critics felt it diluted the political aspects of his work. But for Cai, working "from the inside" is his politics. It's about finding ways to reach diverse audiences to transcend the systems of power that art exists within – much like his explosions transcend into a spiritual world. Genuinely boundary-breaking, Cai's work masterfully nurtures contradictions that not only coexist, but actively fuel one another – opening that gap to make an invisible world seen.