By Cai Guo-Qiang
A continuation of Cai’s first NFT Transient Eternity, Exploding the Self is the genesis moment of a recent self-portrait by Cai. The artist’s silhouette appears in fierce firelight, as if in an instant of liberation, he is experiencing the pleasure of approaching his true self.For the creation of the painting, gunpowder was arranged between two canvases that were laid face-to-face on the ground. Once ignited, two images emerged—one canvas was true to reality, the other a bewildering abstraction…