Cai Guo-Qiang was born in 1957 in Quanzhou City, Fujian Province, China. He initially began working with gunpowder to foster spontaneity and confront the suppression that he felt from the controlled artistic tradition and social climate in China at the time. While living in Japan from 1986 to 1995, he explored the properties of gunpowder in his drawings, which led to the development of his signature explosion events. His large-scale installations, which have drawn upon feng shui, Eastern philosophy, and contemporary social issues as a conceptual basis, utilize a site-specific approach to culture and history that encompasses diverse mediums including drawing, video, and performance art. Cai was awarded the Golden Lion at the 48th Venice Biennale in 1999, the 7th Hiroshima Art Prize in 2007, and the 20th Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize in 2009. He was Director of Visual and Special Effects for the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. In 2008, he was the subject of a retrospective at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. He has lived in New York since 1995.

Cai was selected as a finalist for the 1996 Hugo Boss Prize and was awarded the Golden Lion at the 48th Venice Biennale in 1999. His solo exhibition at Mass MoCA wo Best Monographic Museum Show, and Inopportune: Stage One won Best Installation or Single Work in a Museum from the International Association of Art Critics, New England in 2005. In 2007, he was awarded the 7th Hirohsima Art Prize. In 2009, he was awarded the 20th Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize.

Among his many solo exhibitions and projects are Cai Guo-Qiang on the Roof: Transparent Monument, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2006; Inapportune, Mass MoCa, North Adam, 2005; Traveler, Freer Gallery of Art and Authur M. Sackler Gallery, and Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., 2004; Transient Rainbow, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2002; Cai Guo-Qiang, Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai, 2002; APEC Cityscape Fireworks Show, Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation, Shanghai, 2001; An Arbitrary History, Musee d’art Contemporain Lyon, France, 2001; Cultural Melting Bath: Projects for the 20th Century, Queens Museum of Art, Queens, New York, 1997. Cai was Director of Visual and Special Effects for the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. He curated the first China Pavilion at the 51st Venice Biennale, 2005, and organized and currated BMoCA: Bunker Museum of Contemporary Art, Kinmen, Taiwan, 2004. Along with DMoCA and UMoCA,  BMoCA is one of three alternative art museums founded and curated by Cai in the series Everything is Museum.

Cai Guo-Qiang’s retrospective at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York opened in February 2008, traveled to the National Art Museum of China in Beijing in August 2008 and then to the Guggenheim Bilbao in March 2009. Cai was the subject of another larger-scale retrospective titled Hanging Out in the Museum, which opened in November 2009 at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum. His most recent solo exhibition, Fallen Blossoms, opened in December 2009 and was held jointly by the Philadelphia Museum of Art and The Fabric Workshop and Museum.