Cai Guo-Qiang - Gunpowder and Abstraction 2015-2025

Published to mark Cai Guo-Qiang's solo exhibition at White Cube Bermondsey (September - November 2025), this catalogue charts a decade of the artist's experimentation with gunpowder. Detailing monumental works which shift between registers of the figurative and abstract, this publication profiles Cai's distinctive engagement with a volatile and transformative medium. Over 30 years after their first meeting, Cai and Hans Ulrich Obrist are reunited in conversation for this publication, discussing the artist's early forays with gunpowder, and the many public commissions which have punctuated his career. Additionally, Rachel Rivenc explores the conceptual and material complexity of the artist's practice from her unique perspective as Head of Conservation and Preservation at the Getty Research Institute.