PRESS RELEASE
CAI GUO-QIANG: PEASANT DA VINCIS
AT THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
September 10, 2015 - January 6, 2016
September 9, 2015 - 06.30pm Opening by invitation
National Museum of Science and Technology “Leonardo da Vinci”
Via San Vittore, 21 - Milan
Press kit and images are available at : http://www.museoscienza.org/english/press/
Milan September 8, 2015. The National Museum of Science and Technology and the Shanghai
International Culture Association are proud to present the major exhibition Cai Guo-Qiang:
Peasant da Vincis by the New York based Chinese-born artist. Opening to the public on September 10,
2015, the exhibition will be open until January 6, 2015.
The exhibition features handcrafted machines invented by Chinese peasants and collected by
Cai over the years. With his characteristic site-specific approach, Cai Guo-Qiang showcases the inventions
as a large-scale installation that integrates the architecture of one of the cloisters of the National
Museum of Science and Technology “Leonardo da Vinci”. A twenty-meter high aircraft carrier stands upright
in the middle of the cloister's garden as submarines, aircrafts, and flying saucers circle playfully around it.
These handcrafted raw and amateurish contraptions, based solely on imagination and made without regard
to the laws of physics, contrast with the elegant sixteenth century architecture to create an aesthetic of
wonder. After visiting the cloister and exploring the Museum’s collection (which includes exhibitions of
models of inventions inspired by Da Vinci’s sketches, as well as locomotives, planes and submarines), visitors
finally enter a gallery featuring the Chinese Peasant da Vincis’ Robot Factory.
From 2004 to 2010, Cai Guo-Qiang travelled across nine different provinces in China, meeting
and interviewing inventors living in rural areas, investigating the stories of Chinese peasant dreamers.
Since then, he has collected their inventions and curated exhibitions to celebrate and showcase their work
and stories. Through art, Cai tells the stories of these grass roots inventions to the world. With this
exhibition, Cai Guo-Qiang challenges the contemporary art world by raising fundamental questions of
museology, art history, and human inventiveness: Why do we, as humans, feel the need to invent? Why do
we make art? In conceiving an exhibition with these inventions, the artist celebrates the craftsmanship
and creative splendor of human imagination, all the while giving voice to individuality and to collective
aspirations for a better life.
The first iteration of Cai Guo-Qiang: Peasant da Vincis was the inaugural exhibition at the
Rockbund Art Museum in 2010, held in conjunction with the Shanghai World Expo. The exhibition
slogans “Never Learned How to Land” and “Peasants. Making a Better City, a Better Life” and “What is
important isn’t whether you can fly” echoed the Expo’s concept. In 2013, Cai Guo-Qiang: Peasant da
Vincis travelled to Brasilia, São Paulo, and Rio de Janeiro where it attracted more than one million
visitors overall. The exhibition in Rio alone had a daily average of 6,400 visitors and according to The Art
Newspaper was the most visited art exhibition by a living artist that year. Most recently, in the spring of
2015, a number of inventions were shown at Parasophia: Kyoto International Festival of Contemporary
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Culture. The broad appeal of the exhibition and the accessibility of the concepts it engages with made for
wide acclaim and record visitor attendance at each venue.
The creativity of a handful of peasant inventors is showcased at the National Museum of Science and
Technology Leonardo da Vinci, where Leonardo da Vinci, their predecessor, lived for the majority of his
professional life. On this occasion, the Peasants da Vincis’ story is told in the backdrop of one of the
historical centers for the development of modern science and in a city holding the a historical actor in the
instigation of the Renaissance’s artistic spirit. Milan’s artistic heritage and inventive hub make the city a
match for the exhibition and the expression of Chinese inventors’ individual creativity.
Educational workshops designed by the artist will be held during the exhibition. Children will be engaged in
the construction of recycled kites, flying cars and robot painters. The workshops will be held on the
weekends of: October 10-11, October 31-November 1, November 28-29. Other events will follow during the
Christmas season. For full details please visit: museoscienza.org
Cai Guo-Qiang: Peasant da Vincis is hosted the Shanghai International Culture Association at the National
Museum of Science and Technology “Leonardo da Vinci.” The exhibition is supported by the Rockbund Art
Museum in Shanghai and curated by its Director Larys Frogier. The exhibition’s hosts thank Dragon Fine Art
Freight Co, LIAN Cultural Development Co. as well as Fondazione Italia Cina and for their support in realizing
this exhibition.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Cai Guo-Qiang was born in 1957 in Quanzhou City, Fujian Province, China. He was trained in stage
design at the Shanghai Theater Academy, and his work has since crossed multiple mediums within art
including drawing, installation, video, and performance. While living in Japan from 1986 to 1995, he
explored the properties of gunpowder in his drawings, an inquiry that eventually led to the development of
his signature explosion events. Cai was awarded the Golden Lion at the 48th Venice Biennale in 1999, the
20th Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize in 2009, and the Praemium Imperiale in 2012. Additionally, he was also
among the five artists honored with the first U.S. Department of State Medal of Arts award. He also served
as Director of Visual and Special Effects for the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the 2008 Summer
Olympics in Beijing.
Among his many solo exhibitions and projects include Cai Guo-Qiang on the Roof: Transparent
Monument, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2006 and his retrospective I Want to Believe, which
opened at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York in 2008 before traveling to the National Art
Museum of China in Beijing the same year and then to the Guggenheim Bilbao in 2009. In 2011, Cai
appeared in the solo exhibition Saraab at Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha, Qatar, his first ever
in a Middle Eastern country. In 2012, the artist participated in three solo exhibitions: Sky Ladder at The
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Spring at the Zhejiang Art Museum, Hangzhou, and A Clan of
Boats at the Faurschou Foundation, Copenhagen. Cai Guo-Qiang: Da Vincis do Povo, toured Brazil in 2013
from Brasilia to São Paulo before reaching its final destination in Rio de Janeiro, later that year, Cai created
One Night Stand (Aventure d’un Soir), an explosion event for Nuit Blanche, a citywide art and culture festival
organized by the city of Paris. His solo exhibitions The Ninth Wave and Impromptu opened at the Power
Station of Art in Shanghai and at Fundación Proa respectively in 2014. His most recent exhibitions are: There
and Back Again at the Yokohama Museum of Art and Penglai/Horai for the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale at
the Satoyama Museum of Contemporary Art, Niigata which opened in July 2015.
Cai Guo-Qiang currently lives and works in New York.
ABOUT THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
The National Museum of Science and Technology “Leonardo da Vinci” opened in 1953. The Museum
is located at the heart of Milan, in an Olivetan monastery dating of the sixteenth century. With its 50,000
square meter surface, it is currently the largest science and technology museum in Italy. The Museum
houses the world’s largest collection of models created from the interpretation of Leonardo da Vinci’s
drawings. At the Museum, a selection of models is permanently exhibited in the Leonardo Gallery. The
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Museum works on developing interpretation tools related to this important collection. Among these is an
interactive lab where visitors can test and understand the function of machines drawn by Leonardo da Vinci
as well as experiment with artistic techniques of the Renaissance. With exhibitions, workshops, and
seminars, the Museum engages in the worldwide dissemination of knowledge on Leonardo da Vinci’s work.
For the Museum, the encounter with Cai has fostered an affinity that goes beyond the inventions of the
peasants who reinterpret those of Leonardo da Vinci. The artist's emphasis on creative imagination is very
close to that conducted by the Museum through its educational activities, which aims to enhance the
capacity and confidence of people and connect their creativity to science and technology.
The Peasant da Vincis exhibition is included in the admission ticket as all the activities, except the
guided tour to the S-506 Enrico Toti submarine and the experience on the virtual simulator of helicopter
flight, that need a special ticket and reservation.
INTERNATIONAL PRESS CONTACTS
Concord Communications
Limin ZHONG 13636302125 limin_zhong@concordcomm.cc
Yao CHEN 15121013229 yao_chen@concordcomm.cc
PRESS CONTACTS
National Museum of Science and Technology Leonardo da Vinci
Deborah Chiodoni T +39 02 48555 450 | C + 39 339 1536030
Paola Cuneo T +39 02 48555 343 | C +39 338 1573807
stampa@museoscienza.it
Fondazione Italia Cina
Silvia Cravotta T +39 02 72000000 | C + 39 3479436892
cravotta@italychina.org
PRESS MATERIAL
Photos, videoclips and press releases available at: http://www.museoscienza.org/english/press/
CONTACT INFORMATION FOR VISITORS
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