721Land launches interactive NFT artwork "Tiger Year Explosion," marking the first collaboration between artist Cai Guoqiang and his daughter.
For decades, contemporary artist Cai Guo-Qiang has been renowned worldwide for his unique gunpowder explosion art and large-scale installations. In the year of the Tiger 2022, Cai Guo-Qiang collaborated with his daughter Cai Wenyu for the first time to create a special gift for his wife/mother, Wu Honghong, for her zodiac year. Together, they co-created an interactive NFT artwork titled "Tiger Explosion in the Year of the Tiger," which was unveiled on April 26th, Honghong's birthday, in collaboration with 721Land. The artwork was born from the hands of the artist but requires the participation of collectors to complete. By entering their birthdays on the 721Land website, viewers of different ages will trigger different dynamics of the "Golden Tiger," including nine zodiac-themed years and one non-zodiac year theme. The birthdays of all collectors will be permanently recorded on the blockchain, ensuring the artwork's lasting legacy.
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For decades, contemporary artist Cai Guo-Qiang has been renowned worldwide for his unique gunpowder explosion art and large-scale installations. In the Year of the Tiger 2022, Cai Guo-Qiang collaborated with his daughter Cai Wenyu for the first time to create an interactive NFT artwork titled "Tiger Year Tiger Explosion" as a special gift for his wife/mother Wu Honghong. The piece was jointly unveiled on April 26th, Honghong's birthday, in collaboration with 721Land. The artwork, conceived by the artist but completed by collectors, allows for interaction based on the collector's birthday. By inputting their birthday on the 721Land website, different ages will trigger different dynamics of the "Golden Tiger," including nine themes for the zodiac year and one for non-zodiac years. All collectors' birthdays will be permanently recorded on the blockchain, ensuring the artwork's lasting legacy.
If the collector is not in their zodiac year, inputting their birthday will cause the Golden Tiger to explode thrice with a dazzling golden light, symbolizing the unleashing of the tiger's power. For those in their zodiac year, the Golden Tiger in the artwork will unleash a single explosion, melting into a brilliant golden liquid. Different ages trigger special blessings for "tigers" born in various years, from 0 to 96, such as "Grow like a tiger, prosper in body and mind, spread wings like a tiger, soar far and wide, rise to the top, be blessed by auspicious stars, succeed in all endeavors, joy and peace, longevity and prosperity." Owning this NFT in one's zodiac year signifies a cherished blessing; after the Year of the Tiger, on the first day of the Chinese New Year in 2023, the golden liquid will automatically revert back to the image of the Golden Tiger, symbolizing the completion of one's cycle of luck.
The visual concept of the artwork is inspired by the Year of the Tiger red envelopes designed by Wenyu's "Special Special," drawing from the tiger, gold, and their underlying cultural significance. The tiger symbolizes strength in the Chinese zodiac, while gold conveys a sense of permanence and brilliance; ancient Chinese philosophy believed that "fire produces earth, earth produces gold, and gold produces water." Gunpowder, as the "medicine of fire," and gold both stem from alchemy. Throughout human history of monetary transactions, from ancient gold coins to modern traditional finance, and now contemporary blockchain and cryptocurrencies, there is a sense of continuity with the history of alchemy. Cai Guo-Qiang, known for his unique gunpowder art, is often referred to as a "contemporary alchemist."
Against this backdrop, the NFT "Tiger Year Tiger Explosion" blends the concept of "explosion" with the transformation of the Golden Tiger akin to alchemy, resolving the tiger's fierceness, achieving a balance of luck for the zodiac year, and warding off evil.
Founder of 721Land, Vicky Yu, stated, "It is a great honor to collaborate with Mr. Cai and Wenyu. Through this collaboration, we hope to bring a unique NFT collection to everyone, allowing collectors to experience immersive artwork interaction on the 721Land platform. Simultaneously, the spirit of continuous innovation and exploration by artists aligns well with our vision at 721Land. We also aim to convey the unique Chinese cultural elements and the warmth of family and love through 'Tiger Year Tiger Explosion.' This is not just an innovation in the field of NFT artworks; it carries the precious intentions and blessings of the Cai father-daughter duo."
Cai Guo-Qiang expressed, "Compared to my previous NFT attempts, 'Tiger Year Tiger Explosion' is more about love and sharing between family members; it brings me infinite happiness to collaborate with my daughter! I invite collectors to consider it as a gift for the Year of the Tiger and pass on this warmth to their loved ones."
Birthday acts as a personal code, permanently engraved on the blockchain when entered, connecting collectors with the artist, the artwork, and a deeper connection to life and natural cycles, imbuing NFTs and blockchain with a new heritage encompassing human history. Furthermore, the artist envisions creating a series of NFTs based on the characteristics of the twelve zodiac signs in the future.
721Land is an NFT creation and trading platform centered around the metaverse. The name 721Land is derived from ERC721, the "Non-Fungible Token (NFT)" standard defined in 2017, where each token has unique attributes. Built on a passion for the NFT community, 721Land offers lower transaction fees. By collaborating with prominent artists, 721Land showcases the beauty of NFTs. It aims to establish a community-based ecosystem, providing users with an immersive extension experience that emphasizes sustainability, connectivity, and self-growth.
To enhance user experience, 721Land has created an NFT Hall where users can enjoy a Crypto Voxels metaverse experience.721Land Hall.
Born in 1989, Cai Wenyu considers herself a "reluctant artist" and is the founder of the New York creative platform Special Special. Special Special aims to showcase art that can be touched, used, and played with in daily life. As a Chinese person born in Tokyo and raised in New York, her cross-cultural and occasionally perplexed identity permeates all her creative practices, including photography and curation. Cai Wenyu frequently collaborates with artists and designers to explore curious things beyond the traditional art framework. In 2015, her memoir "Can I Not Be Art" was published, documenting her upbringing in art museums around the world. Her photography collection "Snake Photos of Chickens, Tigers, and Sheep," published in 2019, includes snapshots of Cai's family over twelve years.
She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Rhode Island School of Design and a Master's degree from Goldsmiths, University of London.
Born in 1957 in Quanzhou, Fujian, Cai Guo-Qiang studied Stage Design at the Shanghai Theater Academy in the early 1980s and lived in Japan from late 1986 to 1995. His art spans painting, installations, videos, and performance art, with the foundation of his work rooted in Eastern philosophy and contemporary social issues, adapting to local circumstances to interpret and respond to local cultural histories, constructing dialogues between the audience and larger spaces. His renowned gunpowder explosion art and large installations are dynamic and transcend the two-dimensional, freely moving between society and nature.
He has received prestigious awards including the International Golden Lion Award at the 1999 Venice Biennale and the Hiroshima Art Prize in 2007. In 2012, he was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award in Painting at the "World Cultural Award," often dubbed the "Nobel Prize of the Arts," and the first-ever Art Medal by the U.S. Department of State. He served as a core creative team member for the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympics and as the chief visual effects designer for the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and fireworks design.
For over thirty years, Cai Guo-Qiang has held solo exhibitions in major art institutions worldwide, including a retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 2006 and the Guggenheim Museum in New York in 2008. His explosive project "Sky Ladder" was realized in his hometown of Quanzhou in 2015, with a documentary of the same name directed by Academy Award winner Kevin Macdonald, globally distributed on the Netflix platform.
In recent years, he embarked on the "Journey of a Lone Artist through Western Art History," organizing exhibitions in major art museums worldwide, including the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts (2017, Russia), the Prado Museum (2017, Spain), the Uffizi Gallery (2018, Italy), the National Archaeological Museum of Naples and the Pompeii Archaeological Park (2019, Italy), and the Guggenheim Museum in New York (2019, USA). From December 2020 to February 2021, Cai Guo-Qiang presented "Traveler: Cai Guo-Qiang and the Art of the Ancient Silk Road" at the Palace Museum, marking the first contemporary art solo exhibition in the museum's history. In July 2021, "Traveler: Cai Guo-Qiang and the Art of the Ancient Silk Road" toured to the Pudong Art Museum in Shanghai as one of its inaugural exhibitions, on display until April 5, 2022.
In July 2021, commissioned by the Shanghai Museum on the Bund for its tenth anniversary, Cai Guo-Qiang created his first NFT project, "The Eternal Moment—101 Gunpowder Paintings Ignited." Launched in collaboration with TR Lab through online charity auctions, it set a record for the highest non-encrypted NFT artwork sale by an artist at $2.5 million, with the proceeds donated to the Shanghai Museum on the Bund and primarily used for the "Asia Cultural Council: Cai Scholarship Fund."
Cai Guo-Qiang has been a resident of New York since 1995.