Last week, ARTnews reported that a fireworks show by Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang at the base of the Himalayas in Tibet was being hotly criticized online, leading to public apologies from both the artist and Arc’teryx, the outdoor apparel brand that sponsored the project. Now, according to the Art Newspaper, the same artwork has incited protests outside of one of White Cube‘s London gallery spaces, where Cai is the subject of a just-opened exhibition.
Two UK-based groups, Tibetan Community in Britain and Free Tibet, led a gathering outside White Cube last Thursday to protest and said in a statement, “Cai Guo-Qiang has committed an act of cultural violence that is ethically indefensible; an act that now renders his London show highly controversial.”
The fireworks piece, The Rising Dragon, was staged September 19 at a plateau 18,000 feet above sea level in Shigatse, a city in China’s Tibet Autonomous Region. The outcry online was over environmental concerns that, according to a report by CNN, led the city’s local Communist Party committee to say in a statement, “The Shigatse party committee and government take the matter seriously and have set up an investigation team to send to the site immediately to investigate.”
A spokesperson for White Cube told the Art Newspaper that the gallery “acknowledges these groups’ concerns.” White Cube does not formally represent Guo-Qiang but has been collaborating with him since this past June, including a with the recently opened show, which runs through early November.