Creative Destruction

In some of our readings a reference is made to the capitalist phenomenon of "creative destruction." It is an initially paradoxical term like "accumulation by dispossession." These terms first appear paradoxical because the words in the phrases kind of jingle with opposite connotations. Cai Guo Qiang's art takes great advantage of these tensions in his current exhibit at the Guggenheim Museum called I Want to Believe. His installations depict dynamic moments seemingly frozen in time, often with strong political undercurrents, like the one shown above. He also plays with real explosives creating "Explosion Events." His "sketches" for these events are hanging up in the museum and are clever ways of creating a pseudo-traditional art-object as a counterpart to his more ethereal art-events. His work is rather overwhelming and I am not sure how I feel about that... Could it be too much bombast? Regardless, he makes a very clever use of materials and captures dynamic processes in inventive and intelligent ways.