.jpg)
Cai Guo-Qiang Responds to Fireworks Display Gone Wrong
By Camilla Alvarez-Chow
Computer rendering for CAI GUO-QIANG’s WE ARE: Explosion Event for PST Art, 2024, fireworks display using pyrotechnic and AI drones. Courtesy Cai Studio and PST Art, Los Angeles.
After three weeks of silence, pyrotechnic artist Cai Guo-Qiang has released a statement addressing his disastrous fireworks commission for the third PST Art festival at the Los Angeles Coliseum in southern California, during which coin-sized debris rained onto the crowd, injuring at least two people.
Themed “Art & Science Collide,” PST Art opened on September 15 showcasing more than 800 artists and over 70 exhibitions in the greater Los Angeles region. Inaugurating the event was Cai’s 30-minute daytime fireworks display, WE ARE: Explosion Event for PST Art (2024), which unfolded in five parts and involved setting off tens of thousands of pyrotechnic and AI-drone devices. According to reports, during the final act, debris from firework tubes and rock-like scraps began falling from the sky onto 5,000 attendees packed into the Coliseum. Many residing in neighborhoods close to the festival also reported panic over the unexpectedly loud explosions and smoke that filled the streets, fearing that an emergency or even a bombing had taken place.
In an email to The Los Angeles Times, Cai alleged that there “were no malfunctions with the fireworks” and that his studio “adhered to [the pyrotechnics contractor, Pyro Spectaculars by Souza’s] professional guidance and requirements at every stage of the process.” He proposed that unexpected winds might have been the cause for the debris to scatter, and that “the stadium’s bowl-like structure might have amplified the sound.” Regardless, the artist stated he felt “deeply uneasy and apologetic” over the resulting chaos that ensued, adding that he “should have reminded the audience via broadcast about the potential for loud sounds.”
A spokesperson for the Getty, the Los Angeles museum and foundation sponsoring PST Art, insisted that the venue “followed its normal process for events held at the stadium and notified municipal partners.”
The incident is currently being investigated by California’s Office of the State Fire Marshal in California.
Camilla Alvarez-Chow is an editorial assistant at ArtAsiaPacific.
