Cai Guo-Qiang's protechnic artwork shot up into the sky around 3:25 p.m. this Saturday, 75 years after the Chicago Pile-1 reaction. The artist told UChicago News, “In the 1990s, I used black gunpowder to create mushroom clouds, humankind’s most iconic visual symbol for the 20th century. These mushroom clouds formed part of my Projects for Extraterrestrials. Today, the color mushroom cloud symbolizes the paradoxical nature of employing nuclear energy: Who is it for?”
Simultaneously, a group of students lay silently in front of the Henry Moore sculpture as a flash performance, “It does not bring its own light,” in an effort to make visible the often invisible physical and psychological effects of nuclear radiation.