Commissioned to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Central Park, Cai's Light Cycle fireworks display lit the New York sky with a circle of explosions on a September night in 2003. This 24-page accordion book documents it all from planning to performance, executed by the famous Grucci fireworks family. Separating the book's hardbound cloth covers reveals a continuous folded sheet with reproductions of Cai's gunpowder drawings (made by burning scant gunpowder on paper) on one side and photographs of the event and text on the other. In an interview, the artist compares his drawings to “love-making” and explains some technical aspects of his displays, such as a computer chip in each explosive shell.

Cai Guo-Qiang: Light Cycle: Explosion Project for Central Park (ASIA SOCIETY/CR)

Arts & Photography

GARRELS, Gary

Eleey, Peter

Pasternak, Anne

Desai, Vishakha

History & Criticism

Asia Society/Creative Time

Creative Time: The Book: 83 Years of Public Art in New York City

New York City is the undisputed center of the North American art world, and its public art is one of the most evident signs of its cultural wealth. For more than 30 years, Creative Time has been an avatar of public art in the city, working to engage art and the environment, artists and the public. Creative Time: The Book shows how a single organization made it possible for thousands of artists to present awe-inspiring works that engage, taunt, seduce, enliven, and transform a city. Creative Time artworks have been seen in spaces both lofty and modest. Light projections have appeared on the Beaux-Arts entrance to the New York Public Library and from Ground Zero in the now famous Tribute in Light Memorial to 9/11. Signage has popped up on Times Square's Astrovision screen and along the boardwalks of Coney Island. Music has blasted in Central Park as well as under tunnels in DUMBO, Brooklyn. Creative Time's community includes many of the world's most dynamic, emerging, and established artists, among them Vito Acconci, Doug Aitken, Laurie Anderson, Diller + Scofidio, David Byrne, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Cai Guo-Qiang, Jenny Holzer, Ryan McGinness, Vik Muniz, Takashi Murakami, Shirin Neshat, Sonic Youth, and William Wegman. 
In more than 300 images from the hilarious to the elegiac this dazzling volume highlights the best and most innovative work from the organization's 33 years. Contributors to the volume are among the most important voices in the field of public art. Their commentary collectively shapes this must-have book for anyone interested in contemporary art or in the unapologetically diverse heartbeat of New York. In keeping with Creative Time's innovative spirit, the book itself is the result of a public art installation. Each cover is unique: a tip-on displays the colors, sound, and weather in New York recorded over a two-week period.

Princeton Architectural Press

Our 2007 publication of Creative Time: The Book was a huge hit with artists, designers, and supporters of public art from all over the world. It quickly sold out amid the excitement generated by Creative Time's 33-day celebration of the 33rd year of their ongoing transformation of the public space of New York City into a canvas for awe-inspiring, experimentalart. Now available in paperback, Creative Time: The Book presents the most innovative work from the organization's history. This dazzling volume features a diverse selection of projectsfrom the hilarious to the elegiac. Included are public works by many of the world's most dynamic, emerging, and established artists, among them Vito Acconci, Doug Aitken, Laurie Anderson, Diller + Scofidio, David Byrne, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Cai Guo-Qiang, Jenny Holzer, Ryan McGinness, Vik Muniz, Takashi Murakami, and Sonic Youth.

Collections, Catalogs & Exhibitions

In November 2006, the artist Paul Chan visited New Orleans, in particular those parts of the city devastated by Katrina. "Friends said the city now looks like the backdrop for a bleak science-fiction movie. (...) I realized it didn't look like a movie set, but the stage for a play I have seen many times." That play was Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, a play that has often been successfully staged in politically charged circumstances, such as a prison (San Quentin), and during a war (the Siege of Sarajevo, directed by Susan Sontag). In 2007, Chan staged four free outdoor performances of Godot in two New Orleans neighborhoods. This volume records Chan's project in essays and photographs, elucidating the terrible symmetry between Godot and post-Katrina New Orleans, and, as Chan writes, "the cruel and funny things people do while they wait: for help, for food, for hope."

Paul Chan: Waiting for Godot in New Orleans: A Field Guide

Thompson, Nato

Ya Salaam, Kalamu

McElroen, Christopher

Performing Arts

Creative Time Books

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Books by Pasternak, Anne