Cai Guo Qiang: Inventions by Chinese peasant inventors

Art superstar Cai Guo Qiang (蔡国强) is known for his fireworks, but the 2010 Expo opening spectacular wasn’t his doing. Instead his contribution to the Shanghai art scene is an intriguing show at the newly opened RockBund Art Museum neatly coinciding and softly commenting on the mammoth event.

Rural inventors come to the 2010 Expo

Cai has been following the rural inventors, or “Peasant Da Vincis” as he calls them, for the past five years, collecting their works, visiting and documenting their lives, and nurturing their creations through collaboration and financial support.

In a city plastered with the slogan “Better City Better Life,” the exhibition gives the public some food for thought. On the outside walls of the museum is painted in Chinese calligraphy, “Peasants-making a better city, a better life,” immediately reminding visitors that all the infrastructure that Shanghai has been building up in preparation for this Expo has been carried out by migrant laborers.

“With this exhibition we’re offering a different standpoint, where you see the real stories of individual Chinese people, their dreams, their failures and their successes," says Cai. "By being able to see these individuals, China comes across as a more real country."

Invention with a personal touch

The rural inventors’ ingenuity is inspiring … and also just plain cute. Wu Yulu’s robots use ping pong balls as eyes, and Lu Yuming’s Submarine #1 looks like a fish.

The inventors may not think of themselves as artists, but their works scream with creativity. Cai explains the appeal of these unpolished inventions. “I collect these works because they have a lot of artistic charm. Like this wooden airplane,” he says, pointing behind him. “It looks like the model airplanes from my childhood.”

The inventors’ personal struggles are touching, and Cai has documented them through videos and introductions. Some of the “Peasant Da Vincis’ inventions have not been successful. At least one, an airplane invented by Tan Chengnian, killed its inventor in 2007. You can see the wreck of the plane on the first floor. Another large calligraphed inscription on an outside wall reads, “What’s important isn’t whether you can fly,” while inside submarines, airplanes, and flying saucers hang silently as live birds flit between them.

Others have been successful though. Cai invited inventor Wu Yulu to set up a workshop in the museum. A farmer from outside Beijing with just a fourth grade education, his robots (all named after himself) have become famous in China and throughout the world.

Wu says his family and neighbors used to think he was crazy, but all that changed after he took first place at the National Peasant Inventor Contest in 2004. “This exhibition brings glory to us peasants,” he says.

His favorite is Wu #25, a large metal fellow who pulls a rickshaw and calls out “Wu Yulu is my dad. I’m taking my dad to go shopping. Thank you,” but the show also includes newer robots commissioned by Cai, including two that create Jackson Pollock style splatter paintings.

Cai says that through working with the inventors, he came to respect them and understand them more. And most importantly he says, after collaborating together, “I see in them a bit of myself.”