CAI GUO-QIANG
UMoCA (Under Museum of Contemporary Art)
Ponte di San Francesco, Colle di Val d’Elsa
AEOLIAN GARDEN con JENNIFER WEN MA

Cai Guo-Qiang was born in 1957 in Quanzhou City, Fujian Province, China. Having accomplished himself across a variety of media, Cai initially began working with gunpowder to foster spontaneity and confront the suppression that he felt from the controlled artistic tradition and social climate in China at the time. For the city Colle di Val d’Elsa, Cai Guo-Qiang created for the 2001 edition of Arte all’Arte UMoCA (Under Museum of Contemporary Art) using the San Francesco bridge as an exposing space. UMoCa is a project that makes part of his serie Everything is a Museum, that includes DMoCA (Dragon Museum of Contemporary Art) of Niigata, BMoCA (Bunker Museum of Contemporary Art) of Kinmen: open symbolic spaces in wich Cai Guo-Qiang gives the possibility to other artists to express in their very personal way. This year the invited artist is Jennifer Wen Ma that decides to realise a Aeolian garden under the arches of the bridge where has been recreated an aeolic organ. When the wind blows, music will sound and fill the arches as visitors lay and listen in the hammocks. The music may be faint or loud, harmonious or dissonant, depending on the particular wind conditions of the moment. The bridge was originally built to connect the city to the monastery, providing people a spiritual refuge from their daily lives. With the present-day park alongside the bridge, perhaps it can once again serve as a conduit for contemplation and reflection. The pipes recall the shape of church pipe organs. It also demonstrates how nature intervenes with our senses. Sometimes pleasing and calming, at other times discordant and turbulent, it is similar to how spiritual life and daily life collide.

"UMoCA is a project in my ongoing Everything is Museum series. In Niigata, Japan, there is DMoCA: Dragon Museum of Contemporary Art where Kiki Smith held a solo exhibition in 2003. In Kinmen, Taiwan, there is BMoCA: the Bunker Museum of Contemporary Art, where 18 solo exhibitions were held in 2004. The artists, including filmmakers, composers, actors, architects and visual artists, brought 870,000 visitors to the exhibition.

This edition of UMoCA is the museum's second exhibition. In 2001, I invited Ni Tsai-chin for the inaugural exhibition. Ni, former director of the Taiwan National Gallery of Art, is also an artist. During his directorship at the Gallery, he invited me to "bomb" his museum with an explosion project, which partially led to his resignation from his post.

In keeping with the exhibition of those involved in my own artistic career, I am delighted to present Jennifer Wen Ma for this edition of UMoCA. For years, Jennifer has led the Cai Studio team. Often referred to as the "best artist studio" by many, her management fame in the art world has dwarfed the fact that she is also a fine artist.

Aeolian Garden rests where east, west, north, south, sky and earth all intersect. In the archways under the east/west-bound San Francesco Bridge of Colle di Val d’Elsa, hammocks sway in the north/south wind, the same wind sounds the Aeolian strings stretched between the sky and earth. The bottom crescents of the hammocks beautifully echo the top curves of the arched domes. The hammocks are parallel to this ancient bridge-way, where visitors can reflect upon the centuries-old trek that bridged the divide between the town (the World of Man) and the monastery (the World of God). The wind on the trail of these trips are of a different kind, it is of pleading, confessing and repenting. Nonetheless, these winds are fleeting and merely passing through.

The crossing of this bridge is perhaps not of fleeting significance to Jennifer. Years from now, looking back on this project, this could be the moment when she crossed over - leaving me, my work and my people on this bridge or at its foot.

As a MoCA director, I often think that late at night, when winds pass through my museum, it is cool and quiet, only the museum itself listens."

Cai Guo-Qiang
August 17, 2005

JENNIFER WEN MAN

Jennifer Wen Ma was born in 1973 in Beijing, China. Shortly after receiving her Master’s degree in Fine Arts from New York’s Pratt Institute in 1999, she began to work in the studio of artist Cai Guo-Qiang, while working independently on her own artwork. In 2003, she became Cai Studio’s studio director, and has headed numerous projects for the artist worldwide. Meanwhile, she has continued the exploration of her art and has exhibited in New York, Washington DC, Beijing, Guangzhou among other places.