Cai Guoqiang: It's so nice to come home!

Publisher:英文主页Time:2020-07-01Views:133

29 June 2020

On 26 June, Cai Guoqiang, a famous artist and an alumnus of Shanghai Theatre Academy (STA), visited the Changlin Road Campus of his alma mater for the first time. Huang Changyong, President of Shanghai Theatre Academy, had a cordial meeting with Cai Guoqiang.

Cai Guoqiang studied in the Department of Stage Design of Shanghai Theatre Academy from 1981 to 1985. He was a member of the core creative group and the chief designer of visual and special effects for the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. He was also the chief director of the fireworks shows of the gala celebrations for the 60th anniversary and 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.

Cai Guoqiang and his party visited the theater, library, broadcast studio and film studio on the Changlin Road Campus of STA. In the canteen of the Changlin Road Campus, he also tasted the steamed buns stuffed with dried vegetables and rice dumplings with “STA flavor” that were specially prepared by the canteen staff.

The last stop of the campus visit was the International Conference Center, where many works of Cai Guoqiang were displayed in the corridors. At the suggestion of President Huang Changyong, Cai Guoqiang happily inscribed on several reproductions of his own works, and added a painting called “Reach for the Moon” to his work “Sky Ladder”, in which the child sits on the top of the ladder and reaches out his tender arm to the moon.

After the visit to the Changlin Road Campus, Cai Guoqiang and his party, accompanied by the leaders of Pujin Sub-district, toured the relevant sites and facilities in the community, and explored the prospect of further cultural cooperation in the future.

All alumni are welcome to come home more often. STA is your home, and is also your stage as always.

Cai Guoqiang's art covers painting, device, video and performing arts. Especially, he has been exploring the gunpowder painting which started from his hometown, and has created a unique form of explosion. He has won important international awards, including the International Golden Lion Award at Venice Biennale 1999, the Hiroshima Award 2007, the Fukuoka Asian Culture Award 2009, the Barnett Newman Foundation Award 2015 of the US, the Bonnefanten Contemporary Art Award 2016 of the Netherlands, the Japan International Exchange Fund Award 2016 and the Asian Art Award 2016.