Thunderous rumbles marked the opening of Flora Commedia: Cai Guo-Qiang at the Uffizi as 50,000 fireworks filled the sky above Florence with cascades of multicolored blooms during the pyrotechnic event City of Flowers in the Sky, one of Cai's most spectacularly choreographed to date, inspired by the work of Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli.

Can Contemporary Chinese art be revived as a tool for social critique? Returning to the traditional medium of painting, Liu Xiaodong, whose solo exhibition '25 Oil Paintings: 1993-2007' was up at Yallay Gallery in Hong Kong in March, makes a renewed case for this question, departing from the legacy of socialist realism that has occupied the medium...

You can't help but see red at Jane Lee's first solo exhibition in Hong Kong.The floor outside the Pao Galleries at the Hong Kong Arts Centre in Wan Chai is covered in ribbons of red, stripped canvases, and nearly everything inside is red. It is a colour redolent of so many things that one may assume the Singaporean artist has chosen it for a...

In celebration of its 250th birthday, London's Royal Academy Of Arts explores the historic practice of life drawing in a revolutionary way. Beginning with the Academy's 18th-century origins, From Life continues to the present and, most intriguingly, moves into the future. Historical paintings hang alongside works by Cai Guo-Qiang, Jenny Saville,...

If 30 cm (all works 2017), a common thirty-centimeter plastic ruler stretched and distorted by Lai Chih-Sheng, can be used to navigate Between Dog and Wolf––a title inspired by the French expression "entre chien et loup"—it suggests that our familiar methods of assessment are of no use in a site of uncertainty, metamorphosis, and...

Over the past decade, public art has flourished in our cities. Sculptures and ephemeral performances illuminate our public spaces while questioning societal norms. And when participatory and interactive, public art leaves a long-lasting impression in our minds. This was surely the case for whoever experienced Christo and Jeanne-Claude's The...

The world-renowned Biennale of Sydney is back next year to celebrate its 45th anniversary exhibition. Set to maintain its status as the largest and best-attended contemporary arts event in Australia, the 21st Biennale of Sydney is anticipated to once again bring an impressive and diverse range of contemporary artists and artworks to the...

Held over nine sites and including 33 artists, the first edition of the Honolulu Biennial takes place between 8 March and 8 May 2017. Entitled Middle of Now | Here, the Biennial challenges the idea that Hawaiʻi is in 'the middle of nowhere'. Covering more than 30 percent of the Earth's surface, the Pacific is the largest unified living space on...

This March, TEFAF is the occasion for a host of outstanding exhibitions in and around Maastricht. While some are a little further afield, if you are visiting the city it's worth extending your stay to take in some of the satellite events. Here is our pick of the best fairs and museum shows in the region.

Connecting the Earth to the rest of the universe was Cai Guo Qiang's childhood dream. When he finally realised it in 2015 after 20 years and three failed attempts, a majestic 500-metre ladder of gold light ascended into the night sky over the Huiyu Island harbour, not far from Cai's hometown in Fujian province.

On 15 November 2016 the Chinese Contemporary Art Award (CCAA) announced winners Cao Fei, He Xiangyu and Xu Bing. In its 10th edition, the award was founded in 1997 by pioneering Swiss collector Uli Sigg, who began collecting Chinese contemporary artists in the 1990s.The aim of CCAA is to give awards to Chinese artists and art critics who show...

Presented by Experimenter Gallery in India, the Experimenter Curators’ Hub (ECH) has been held annually since 2011 to encourage conversations in the dynamic art realm by inviting leading curators and artists from India and all over the world to deliver talks. Covering a broader scope of art disciplines and including curators from the field of...

In February 2016, coinciding with the Chinese Lunar New Year celebrations, Manchester’s Centre For Chinese Contemporary Art (CFCCA) launched a six-month programme of exhibitions for its 30th anniversary. The anniversary programme invites artists from CFCCA’s history, who have become internationally acclaimed, to return to Manchester to...

At Leo Xu Projects, the artist Michael Lin’s most favored themes—inquiries into notions of hometown and elsewhere, dialogues between works of art and architecture, and his own particular critiques of consumerist society—were condensed within the exquisite layout of an old Shanghai villa. From the living room walls to the corner of...

Sitting in a Zen-inspired studio in a converted school building on the Lower East Side, the Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang bemoaned how his native country’s art is often squeezed between pronouncements of record auction prices and denouncements of China’s one-party political system when it is presented in the United States and to some...

From now until mid-July 2016, Qatar Museums presents a major exhibition of 15 contemporary Chinese creatives and collectives, curated by artist Cai Guo-Qiang. What about the art? Contemporary art from China has been organised to strengthen the understanding between nations through a mutual exchange of arts, culture, and heritage.Cai...

Pictographic language, the dissolving boundaries in globalised communication and the anxieties of modern life are the themes explored by Xu Bing in a mixed media display at Manchester’s Centre for Chinese Contemporary Arts this month. Xu Bing, a globally renowned Chinese artist, had his first solo show in the UK at the Chinese Arts Centre (as...

Following a residency by the artist at Singapore Tyler Print Institute (STPI), the creative workshop and gallery opened a solo exhibition of work by Jane Lee on 17 January 2016. The multimedia output of this young but much acclaimed Singapore artist will be on display until 5 March.In her short career to date, Jane Lee has been exhibited widely...

M+, West Kowloon Cultural District, is delighted to announce that the tenth edition of the Mobile M+ exhibition series M+ Sigg Collection: Four Decades of Chinese Contemporary Art will take place at ArtisTree in Taikoo Place from 23 February to 5 April 2016 with the support of Leading Sponsor Credit Suisse.M+ Sigg Collection: Four Decades of...

This November with an auction of over 80 works of art generously donated by local and international artists and galleries. In partnership with Christie’s, the artworks will be available to preview from 10–13 November at The Space. The accompanying dinner and live auction will be hosted on 14 November at the iconic floating restaurant...

New York’s Japan Society has appointed Japanese curator Yukie Kamiya as the new director of its gallery. Previously the chief curator at Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art (Hiroshima MoCA) in Japan, Kamiya will step into her new position at the Japan Society on November 16. During her time at Hiroshima MoCA, which began in 2007, Kamiya...

Founded in 1988 under the auspices of the Taiwan Provincial Government’s Department of Education, NTMoFA was and remains the only public fine arts museum in Taiwan. In a push to downsize the Provincial Government in 1999, the museum was transferred into the hands of the Council of Cultural Affairs (now the Ministry of Culture as of 2012), and...

A huge white balloon filled with 6,200 cubic meters of helium slowly ascended into the sky above Huiyu Island Harbour, Quanzhou, China. Attached to it was a 500-meter long ladder coated completely with quick burning fuses and gold fireworks that was then ignighted by artist Cai Guo­-Qiang (previously) who has become known for his ambitious...

Japanese artist Taro Okamoto once said, “Art is an explosion.” Okamoto’s famous dictum, however, literally applies to the New-York-based Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang, who is famous for using gunpowder explosions to distribute colors and other effects across his expansive canvases.Once based in Japan, Cai has an impressive new solo...