SAO PAULO.- After a successful exhibition run in Brasilia with over 300,000 visitors, Cai Guo-Qiang: Peasant Da Vincis moves onto São Paulo from 20 April to 23 June. On view concurrently at the Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil and the Prédio Histórico dos Correios, the exhibition is free to the public, before traveling to the third and final venue in Rio de Janeiro.

The exhibition in São Paulo includes fourteen major installations by the artist, shown alongside a number of works by Chinese amateur inventors. Paulistas will soon discover the excitement of Cai’s art as it takes over the public space outside CCBB’s historical building. Homemade planes, flying saucers and submarines hover above Sao Paulo’s most busy streets, while robots pull rickshaws along the sidewalk. Concentrated in downtown São Paulo, Peasant Da Vincis transforms once familiar spaces and redefines public art.

This exhibition also demonstrates the breadth of Cai’s artistic practice. Although best known for his works with gunpowder and pyrotechnics, Cai takes a different direction and presents the stories of peasant inventors from all over China. Over 60 inventions represent the wildest imaginations of Chinese peasants, some of which even defy basic engineering principles and government regulations. The exhibition not only explores the amateur handmade aesthetics of the peasants’ creations, but also their social, political, and cultural implications.

Taking inspiration from the inventors, the two slogans “Never learnt how to land” and “What’s important isn’t whether you can fly” symbolize their enthusiasm, as well as the romantic and courageous pursuit of their dreams. Originally launched at the Rockbund Art Museum in Shanghai to coincide with the 2010 World Exposition, the exhibition had a critical impact in China. The exhibition’s main theme “Peasants—Making a Better City, a Better Life” makes light of the Expo’s tagline “Better City, Better Life.” It also encourages the public to reflect upon peasants’ contribution to China’s rapid-paced modernization, and their ultimate sacrifice. Highlighting the individual creativity of Chinese peasants outside of the collective political will, the exhibition shows the nation’s pursuit of social equality and democracy.

Peasant Da Vincis is reconfigured to respond to the different cultural and architectural context of each of the three cities hosting the exhibition. In Brasilia, the first city, the exhibition harmonized playfully with its natural surroundings. In São Paulo, the artist takes his works to the streets where Carnival festivities typically take place, inviting the public to have an unexpected encounter and dialogue with art outside the confines of the museum.

Contrasting the clamor on the streets outside, the galleries inside CCBB offer a tranquil space for quiet introspection. Immediately upon entrance, viewers are confronted with the enormous 18 meter high 4 meter wide drawing Birds and Flowers of Brazil. Extending vertically through the entire atrium, the gunpowder drawing effectively connects all five exhibition floors, creating a visual experience of unrolling a classical Chinese hanging scroll painting.

At Prédio Histórico dos Correios, the large-scale gunpowder drawing Carnival Rehearsal was inspired by the artist’s site visit to Rio in 2012, when he witnessed the magnificent spectacle of samba school rehearsals for the Carnival. The composition incorporates the peasants’ inventions such as flying machines and submarines into the festive parades in the Brazilian carnival, to create a wild and romantic storm of energy that whirls through the gallery space.

Complex, an awe‐inspiring 20-meter long aircraft carrier commissioned by Cai and created by submarine inventor Tao Xiangli sits in the atrium of Correios. Submarines made out of propane tanks hang on the side of hand built vessel, as dozens of model fighter jets and a control tower made from salvaged materials sit atop the deck. The epic silent film Our Century by Soviet filmmaker Artavazd Pelechian is projected inside the carrier, recounting the glorious fanfare as well as failures from human exploration of unknown terrains.

As renowned Brazilian curator and the curator of this exhibition Marcello Dantas comments, “Cai Guo-Qiang is a sculptor of scenarios. He turns the unimaginable visible, invokes memories of non-lived moments, brings aliens to Earth, but do not teach them how to land. His place in the world of contemporary art occupies a category of his own today. His practice was able to solve and dissolve the borders between spectacle, sculpture and installation. Cai’s work is a bridge between imagined and real worlds. To be on this bridge is to be in balance with these two worlds. “

Developed specifically for Peasant Da Vincis, CCBB’s accomplished education department, renowned for its programs focused on families, school groups, educators, seniors, NGOs, and people with disabilities, will work with the artist to implement an interactive space for children to develop their creative abilities. In the “Ufocina” (“UFO-workshop”), the young “Da Vincis” will produce their own airplanes, submarines, UFOs, and robots using everyday materials. Selected inventions by Brazilian children participating in the workshop will be incorporated and presented in the exhibition as part of the art installation Children da Vincis. In addition to the objects made on site in Sao Paulo, over 600 pieces of children artwork already made in Brasilia will also tour to São Paulo, making the program an ever-evolving workshop.

Since Cai’s attendance record-breaking retrospective I Want to Believe at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2008), the artist has been actively seeking transcultural dialogue across the world through his various solo exhibitions such as Fallen Blossoms, Philadelphia Museum of Art (2009), Cai Guo-Qiang: Saraab at Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Qatar (2011), Cai Guo-Qiang: Sky Ladder, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2012), Spring: Zhejiang Art Museum, China (2012). In 2012, Cai was honored as one of five Laureates for the prestigious Praemium Imperiale, an award that recognizes lifetime achievement in the arts in categories not covered by the Nobel Prize. Additionally, he was also among the five artists who received the first U.S. Department of State - Medal of Arts award for his outstanding commitment to international cultural exchange.