Contemporary artist Cai Guo-Qiang (Chinese, b.1957) is renowned for his innovative, politically charged pieces, ranging from installations and performances to works on paper, which incorporate gunpowder and explosions. Cai was born in Quanzhou in the Fujian Province of China, and studied Set Design at the Shanghai Drama Institute and Art at the PS 1 Contemporary Art Center in New York. In 1986, he moved to Japan, where he began to use gunpowder in his work as a way of challenging the social and cultural repression of the Chinese Cultural Revolution of previous years. Cai creates site-specific explosions that are both visually arresting and rife with symbolism. In recent work, Cai has dealt with issues of Chinese globalization. Cai has received numerous awards, including the Venice Biennale International Golden Lion Prize, the CalArts/Alpert Award in the Arts, and the Hiroshima Award. He has exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, the Royal Academy of Art in London, the Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin, and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. He lives and works in New York.