• Home
  • popular
  • EVENTS
  • submit-new-event
  • CHARITY GUIDE
  • Children
  • Education
  • Health
  • Veterans
  • Social Services
  • Arts + Culture
  • Animals
  • LGBTQ
  • New Charity
  • TRENDING NEWS
  • News
  • City Life
  • Entertainment
  • Sports
  • Home + Design
  • Travel
  • Real Estate
  • Restaurants + Bars
  • Arts
  • Society
  • Innovation
  • Fashion + Beauty
  • subscribe
  • about
  • series
  • Embracing Your Inner Cowboy
  • Green Living
  • Summer Fun
  • Real Estate Confidential
  • RX In the City
  • State of the Arts
  • Fall For Fashion
  • Cai's Odyssey
  • Comforts of Home
  • Good Eats
  • Holiday Gift Guide 2010
  • Holiday Gift Guide 2
  • Good Eats 2
  • HMNS Pirates
  • The Future of Houston
  • We Heart Hou 2
  • Music Inspires
  • True Grit
  • Hoops City
  • Green Living 2011
  • Cruizin for a Cure
  • Summer Fun 2011
  • Just Beat It
  • Real Estate 2011
  • Shelby on the Seine
  • Rx in the City 2011
  • Entrepreneur Video Series
  • Going Wild Zoo
  • State of the Arts 2011
  • Fall for Fashion 2011
  • Elaine Turner 2011
  • Comforts of Home 2011
  • King Tut
  • Chevy Girls
  • Good Eats 2011
  • Ready to Jingle
  • Houston at 175
  • The Love Month
  • Clifford on The Catwalk Htx
  • Let's Go Rodeo 2012
  • King's Harbor
  • FotoFest 2012
  • City Centre
  • Hidden Houston
  • Green Living 2012
  • Summer Fun 2012
  • Bookmark
  • 1987: The year that changed Houston
  • Best of Everything 2012
  • Real Estate 2012
  • Rx in the City 2012
  • Lost Pines Road Trip Houston
  • London Dreams
  • State of the Arts 2012
  • HTX Fall For Fashion 2012
  • HTX Good Eats 2012
  • HTX Contemporary Arts 2012
  • HCC 2012
  • Dine to Donate
  • Tasting Room
  • HTX Comforts of Home 2012
  • Charming Charlie
  • Asia Society
  • HTX Ready to Jingle 2012
  • HTX Mistletoe on the go
  • HTX Sun and Ski
  • HTX Cars in Lifestyle
  • HTX New Beginnings
  • HTX Wonderful Weddings
  • HTX Clifford on the Catwalk 2013
  • Zadok Sparkle into Spring
  • HTX Let's Go Rodeo 2013
  • HCC Passion for Fashion
  • BCAF 2013
  • HTX Best of 2013
  • HTX City Centre 2013
  • HTX Real Estate 2013
  • HTX France 2013
  • Driving in Style
  • HTX Island Time
  • HTX Super Season 2013
  • HTX Music Scene 2013
  • HTX Clifford on the Catwalk 2013 2
  • HTX Baker Institute
  • HTX Comforts of Home 2013
  • Mothers Day Gift Guide 2021 Houston
  • Staying Ahead of the Game
  • Wrangler Houston
  • First-time Homebuyers Guide Houston 2021
  • Visit Frisco Houston
  • promoted
  • eventdetail
  • Greystar Novel River Oaks
  • Thirdhome Go Houston
  • Dogfish Head Houston
  • LovBe Houston
  • Claire St Amant podcast Houston
  • The Listing Firm Houston
  • South Padre Houston
  • NextGen Real Estate Houston
  • Pioneer Houston
  • Collaborative for Children
  • Decorum
  • Bold Rock Cider
  • Nasher Houston
  • Houston Tastemaker Awards 2021
  • CityNorth
  • Urban Office
  • Villa Cotton
  • Luck Springs Houston
  • EightyTwo
  • Rectanglo.com
  • Silver Eagle Karbach
  • Mirador Group
  • Nirmanz
  • Bandera Houston
  • Milan Laser
  • Lafayette Travel
  • Highland Park Village Houston
  • Proximo Spirits
  • Douglas Elliman Harris Benson
  • Original ChopShop
  • Bordeaux Houston
  • Strike Marketing
  • Rice Village Gift Guide 2021
  • Downtown District
  • Broadstone Memorial Park
  • Gift Guide
  • Music Lane
  • Blue Circle Foods
  • Houston Tastemaker Awards 2022
  • True Rest
  • Lone Star Sports
  • Silver Eagle Hard Soda
  • Modelo recipes
  • Modelo Fighting Spirit
  • Athletic Brewing
  • Rodeo Houston
  • Silver Eagle Bud Light Next
  • Waco CVB
  • EnerGenie
  • HLSR Wine Committee
  • All Hands
  • El Paso
  • Avenida Houston
  • Visit Lubbock Houston
  • JW Marriott San Antonio
  • Silver Eagle Tupps
  • Space Center Houston
  • Central Market Houston
  • Boulevard Realty
  • Travel Texas Houston
  • Alliantgroup
  • Golf Live
  • DC Partners
  • Under the Influencer
  • Blossom Hotel
  • San Marcos Houston
  • Photo Essay: Holiday Gift Guide 2009
  • We Heart Hou
  • Walker House
  • HTX Good Eats 2013
  • HTX Ready to Jingle 2013
  • HTX Culture Motive
  • HTX Auto Awards
  • HTX Ski Magic
  • HTX Wonderful Weddings 2014
  • HTX Texas Traveler
  • HTX Cifford on the Catwalk 2014
  • HTX United Way 2014
  • HTX Up to Speed
  • HTX Rodeo 2014
  • HTX City Centre 2014
  • HTX Dos Equis
  • HTX Tastemakers 2014
  • HTX Reliant
  • HTX Houston Symphony
  • HTX Trailblazers
  • HTX_RealEstateConfidential_2014
  • HTX_IW_Marks_FashionSeries
  • HTX_Green_Street
  • Dating 101
  • HTX_Clifford_on_the_Catwalk_2014
  • FIVE CultureMap 5th Birthday Bash
  • HTX Clifford on the Catwalk 2014 TEST
  • HTX Texans
  • Bergner and Johnson
  • HTX Good Eats 2014
  • United Way 2014-15_Single Promoted Articles
  • Holiday Pop Up Shop Houston
  • Where to Eat Houston
  • Copious Row Single Promoted Articles
  • HTX Ready to Jingle 2014
  • htx woodford reserve manhattans
  • Zadok Swiss Watches
  • HTX Wonderful Weddings 2015
  • HTX Charity Challenge 2015
  • United Way Helpline Promoted Article
  • Boulevard Realty
  • Fusion Academy Promoted Article
  • Clifford on the Catwalk Fall 2015
  • United Way Book Power Promoted Article
  • Jameson HTX
  • Primavera 2015
  • Promenade Place
  • Hotel Galvez
  • Tremont House
  • HTX Tastemakers 2015
  • HTX Digital Graffiti/Alys Beach
  • MD Anderson Breast Cancer Promoted Article
  • HTX RealEstateConfidential 2015
  • HTX Vargos on the Lake
  • Omni Hotel HTX
  • Undies for Everyone
  • Reliant Bright Ideas Houston
  • 2015 Houston Stylemaker
  • HTX Renewable You
  • Urban Flats Builder
  • Urban Flats Builder
  • HTX New York Fashion Week spring 2016
  • Kyrie Massage
  • Red Bull Flying Bach
  • Hotze Health and Wellness
  • ReadFest 2015
  • Alzheimer's Promoted Article
  • Formula 1 Giveaway
  • Professional Skin Treatments by NuMe Express

    Explosive art

    Chinese gunpowder wizard Cai Guo-Qiang set to blow up MFAH

    Steven Devadanam
    Steven Thomson
    Aug 6, 2010 | 12:01 am
    News_MFAH_Cai Guo-Qiang_gunpowder artist
    Cai Guo-Qiang producing a gunpowder drawing titled "Unmanned Nature," Hiroshima, October 2008
    Photo by Seiji Toyonaga, Courtesy Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art

    A literal blow-out is scheduled this fall for the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

    It's not a glam gala or swank YP cocktail hour. This is the live action work of artist Cai Guo-Qiang, who, come October, will be igniting his room-size gunpowder drawings and installing the works inside the museum.

    "Cai Guo-Qiang's collaboration with the museum is unique in the world," Peter C. Marzio, director of the MFAH, tells CultureMap.

    Considered the Jackson Pollock of our time, the Chinese-born Guo-Qiang has taken action painting and added the ancient Chinese invention of gunpowder to allow his drawings to catch fire. Through this medium, he has connected the mythic and the everyday with projects in all the inhabited continents of the world.

    With his work at the MFAH, Guo-Qiang will be producing his first permanent, site-specific installation in a United States museum, beginning with a live viewing of his method in a 25,000-square-foot warehouse in Houston (Oct. 5-6).

    At the warehouse, the artist will ignite the drawing with a fuse, emitting energy and fumes that will produce the final work. The result will be an explosive moment for contemporary art in American museums.

    Once he has finished the work over several days, in which the public will have the opportunity to view the artistic process, the monumental ethereal landscape, Odyssey, will be installed, lining the four walls of the MFAH's Ting Tsung and Wei Fong Chao Arts of China Gallery. The installation, opening on Oct. 17, will envelope that gallery's display of ancient Asian artifacts.

    "We're thinking of new ways to display not just modern art, but how it fits into the history of the entire world," Marzio says. "With many of the really good museum collections of Asian art, there's a hushed feeling when you walk into the galleries.

    "You immediately feel alien, and it's hard to learn in that environment. I wanted to get away from that."

    Odyssey is the first instance of the museum's Portals Project, an initiative to bridge the understanding of ancient Asian art by juxtaposing the genre with key pieces of contemporary art from the continent.

    "It's part of a broader concept that we're dealing with which will be fully explored when we construct the museum's third building," Marzio says. "We're thinking of new ways to display not just modern art, but how it fits into the history of the entire world."

    By positioning ancient work ensconced in the work of Guo-Qiang, the museum intends to demystify both ends of the chronological spectrum and open it up to new audiences.

    It's unusual for a general, encyclopedic art museum to chart such unknown territory. Such a daring exhibition would usually fall under the realm of a specialized Asian or contemporary art museum. Yet the MFAH's unique focus on diversity is propelling it towards new curatorial perspectives as part of its effort to open up art to more people.

    And those new audiences are sure to be enraptured by the installation's action-packed compositions.

    "He drops the gunpowder on the canvas in a way that's similar to Jackson Pollock in those films," Marzio says. "There's a lot of chance when you ignite a monumental drawing, whether or not it's going to follow the pattern that's been laid out."

    Guo-Qiang's work has been noted by critics for its intrinsic "poetic" appeal. "It's unpredictable, and that's where the element of poetry comes in," Marzio says. "The juxtapositions of words in poetry and lines in Guo-Qiang's work are so rich, they both invite a wealth of interpretations. It looks so delicate, and yet it was caused by combustion — and you feel that."

    Guo-Qiang is an established name in contemporary art circles, so when Christine Starkman, the MFAH curator of Asian art invited him to the museum, the curator capitalized on the moment and asked him about utilizing the Arts of China Gallery.

    "It struck me as an ideal relationship, and he understood the space right away," Marzio says. The artist and museum director hatched the concept to turn the gallery into a crucible for understanding Asian art. "He immediately got really excited," Marzio adds.

    While performance art and active installation has been explored by artists for decades, from Pollock's brand of Abstract Expressionism to the rock formations of Robert Smithson and the Earth Art movement, Guo-Qiang's method speaks of a higher plain of spirituality, all part of his consistent investigation of humanity's place in the universe.

    On that notion, the artist remarks, "Odyssey not only symbolizes the voyage that Chinese culture has taken from antiquity to modern times, it is also about the ancient Chinese literati's journeys of the mind between heaven and earth. It removes us from the materialism, the hustle and bustle of modern civilization, allowing us to seek self-exile, wander aimlessly and embark on a spiritual odyssey of our own."

    Cai Guo-Qiang working his gunpowder magic:

    Cai Guo-Qiang producing a gunpowder drawing titled "Unmanned Nature," Hiroshima, October 2008

    News_MFAH_Cai Guo-Qiang_gunpowder artist
      
    Photo by Seiji Toyonaga, Courtesy Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art
    Cai Guo-Qiang producing a gunpowder drawing titled "Unmanned Nature," Hiroshima, October 2008
    unspecified
    news/entertainment

    most read posts

    Innovative Houston chef is the city's newest James Beard Award winner

    Houston chef Tristen Epps dishes on his Top Chef victory — and what's next

    Houston company ranks No. 13 worldwide on new Forbes Global 2000 list

    Movie Review

    28 Years Later revives zombie franchise for new generation

    Alex Bentley
    Jun 20, 2025 | 5:00 pm
    Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Alfie Williams in 28 Years Later
    Photo by Miya Mizuno
    Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Alfie Williams in 28 Years Later.

    The 2000s brought two of the best zombie movies ever made in 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later. Both films, despite being made by different filmmakers, featured intense action with fast-moving zombies, harrowing sequences, and real emotional connections with their main characters. Now the original director and writer — Danny Boyle and Alex Garland — have returned with the first of a possible three sequels, 28 Years Later.

    The rage virus from the first two films that turns humans into insatiable monsters has successfully been contained to the United Kingdom, and one group of survivors has managed to band together on a small island off the coast of England. We’re introduced to the group through Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), his wife, Isla (Jodie Comer), and his son, Spike (Alfie Williams).

    Isla is sick with an unknown illness, while Jamie is set to take the 12-year-old Spike on his first trip to the mainland to hunt zombies. That trip not only gives Spike an education as to the different types of feral zombies that now populate England, but also a clue that other people have survived there. When he discovers that one of them may be a doctor, he makes plans to take his mother there in hopes of finding a cure for whatever ails her.

    While the first two films were notable for their brisk pace that kept the potency of the stories high, Boyle and Garland almost go in the opposite direction for much of this film. The first 90 minutes are relatively slow, with only a couple of sequences that raise the blood pressure. The final half hour or so go a long way toward filling that void, so it’s clear that the filmmakers were biding their time for the story to come in the sequel. A bit more balance in this film would have served them well, though.

    What they do show involves some weird, wild stuff that is objectively upsetting, even for fans of the genre. The zombies have evolved in strange ways, giving them a variety of body shapes and abilities to suit the environment in which they live. These storytelling choices may thrill some and have others scratching their heads. Another human character living on his own (played by Ralph Fiennes), appears to have gone the way of Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now, with a revelation that is bone-chilling.

    Boyle, who’s directed everything from Trainspotting to Slumdog Millionaire, doesn’t have a signature style, and he makes some choices in this film that test your patience. He occasionally employs an odd technique in which the film stutters, for a lack of better term. It’s a bit jarring, especially since it doesn’t seem to improve the storytelling. He also inserts scenes from older films involving medieval warfare that emulate the bow-and-arrow weaponry used by characters in this film, but the exact connection he’s trying to make is unclear.

    The young Williams has a lot put on his shoulders in the film, and he proves to be up to the task of carrying the story. He isn’t precocious or annoying, instead reacting almost exactly like you’d expect a boy of his age to do when faced with extreme situations. Taylor-Johnson and Comer are good complements for him, drawing him out with their polar opposite characters. Fiennes makes a huge impression in the final act of the film, while Jack O’Connell makes a very brief appearance, teasing a bigger role to come.

    It’s difficult to fully judge 28 Years Later because it’s designed to only give you part of the story; part 2, The Bone Temple, is due in 2026, while a third film will follow if the first two do well. This film has its moments and winds up on the positive side of the ledger, but it’s also a frustrating experience that could have used a more stand-alone story.

    ---

    28 Years Later is now playing in theaters.

    moviesfilm
    news/entertainment
    CULTUREMAP EMAILS ARE AWESOME
    Get Houston intel delivered daily.
    Loading...