ook up to the sky at 7pm on Friday 2‘) July
in the centre of lidinburgh and you will see
a big explosion. Do not panic. It's nothing dangerous — just art. lligh above the castle 12.000 shells will be fired to create a massive black rainbow and signal the beginning of the lidinburgh Art liestival. The second year of this Festival. still struggling to emerge as something independent beyond uniting existing summer shows under one banner. is defiantly opening with a bang.
New York-based Chinese artist (‘ai Guo-Qiang has been working hard honing his best explosives to create this event which is part of a show at the Fruitmarket and Scottish National Portrait Gallery called Life Beneath the Shadmr'. ‘There will be three stages to this black rainbow explosion.’ he says from New York via an interpreter. ‘The first one is gradually from the left to right — the rainbow grows from zero to a full rainbow. like a bird flying by. and the smoke stays in the sky.
For the second stage the rainbow opens like a fan and the third stage will be three flashes of the entire rainbow shape in the sky.‘ There is something sinister in this beauty: fireworks burst light and colour into a night sky; a rainbow is the fleeting coalescence of rain and sun. but an exploding black rainbow is antithetical to all such ephemera. The unsettling proposition is entirely designed. ‘I had this idea of how people in the daylight have a lot of fears.‘ Guo-Qiang says a week before events in London lend his words increased redolence. ‘By firing it in the daylight it gives you a feeling of uneasiness and a strange feeling. And at the same time the lidinburgh castle has a lot of mysterious ghost stories that are part of the history that echoes with the exhibition title.’
Guo-Qiang is obsessive about ghosts and the supernatural. When I ask him if he really believes in them he just says: ’()f course.’ In discussing a possible show with the Fruitmarket. the gallery linked him up with James Robertson. this country‘s leading writer of historical Scottish underworlds. The collaboration has born some eerie fruits which come from the intertwining of local folklore and (‘hinese mythology.
In the first part. a banana grove (currently being nurtured at the Royal Botanical Gardens) will be installed in the gallery. onto which Robertson will write phrases from Scottish ghost stories. In Chinese lore. banana groves are where ghosts linger and Guo-Qiang hopes to spark off a sense of the supernatural in visitors to the gallery. He will film the space at night and broadcast videos the next day. The idea came after he experienced the ghost hunts of the Edinburgh tourist circuit. Bemused. he realised that sensing a world beyond comes from inside.
‘When I did a site visit it was a very interesting experience.‘ he says. ‘They were all organised for people to gather together and go look for ghosts — so like a childhood adventure. I feel these tours are like performance art because everyone gathers together to go to some basement with dim lighting and people will say. “There has been a ghost here in this corner.” and everyone‘s looking for something in a collective group. So you pay the money to go on a tour but you see nothing. With the installation at the liruitmarket Gallery. you can read the ghost stories on the plantain leaves and imagine it. but basically it‘s all coming from within.‘
The second part of the collaboration involves more explosives. but these ones have been detonated on the other side of the Atlantic. Guo-
Cai Guo-Qiang (above) explodes gunpowder (right and below right) to create images such as this self portrait (opposite). For his Edinburgh exhibition Guo-Qiang will also exhibit hundreds of tiny ‘voodoo’ dolls (above right) and a black rainbow over the castle (bottom)
Qiang makes what he calls gunpowder portraits.
It is a process that involves spreading gunpowder
on top of a piece of paper as a sketch which is then covered with cardboard and heavy objects before being ignited. ‘We stamp out the remaining fire so that it doesn't burn through the
paper and basically what burns through the paper
is a residue of a shape that I designed before.' he says. ‘I feel that making gunpowder portraits is like making love - you place everything very carefully before and ignite it. liven though you plan otrt things you‘re always surprised what happens in the end.‘
The linking of orgasm to death is a common idea — ‘le petit mort‘ in French. Guo-Qiang will. though. be bringing figures from the past back to life in these gunpowder plots. Robertson supplied Guo-Qiang with the names and details of figures from the more searny side of Scottish culture — from witches to corrtrpt Presbyterians or those connected with the occult. and Guo- Qiang chose his favourite 12. ‘There's Arthur Conan Doyle who lost a son in World War l and got into spiritualism.‘ says Robertson. ‘And Major Weir. a (‘ovenenter from the 17th century who was a strict Presbyterian involved in the civil wars and lived in the Old Town. He was outwardly very devout. but was discovered to be leading a double life and was burnt to death.‘ Others include Robert Kirk who wrote a book about faeries. Bald Agnes (a witch burnt at the stake). Isobel Gowdie (the records for whose I660s witch trial still exist). Michael Scott (a philosopher in the Medieval period with a reputation for being a wizard). and ‘Bluidy MacKen/ie'nhe Lord Advocate who is buried in Greyfriar's Kirkyard).
The potency of these tales is strong. from crueller. more mysterious times. where the daily lives of folk were constantly crossing over into worlds beyond their ken. Belief. fear and hysteria led to all sorts of gruesome acts. bttt also connected to a sense of possibility. ‘There‘s quite a yearning in modern society for something spiritual that‘s been lost.‘ Robertson says. 'l’eople still need something that can fill the gap. Ghost stories about other worlds remind you that you don‘t know everything.’
Black rainbows are just the beginning.
Life Beneath the Shadow, the Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, Fri 29 Jul—Sat 17 Sep; Black Rainbow: Explosion Project for Edinburgh, above Edinburgh Castle, Fri 29 Jul, 7pm
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