"This museum has everything that other museums have—a space, a curator, light, audience—but it does not have all the baggage that comes with new museums, such as insurance, climate controls, electricity, security guards, etc., so I faced a challenge similar to when the primitive cavemen first painted on the wall."

Wang Wen-chi (b. 1959). Dragon Dares Tiger Lair, 2004. Bamboo and rattan, installation view at Nanshan Fortification No. 2, Bunker, BMoCA, Kinmen Island

In the early 1990s Cai began what are called “social projects,” which strive to integrate contemporary art into the everyday life of communities and cities. Assuming the role of cultural activist, Cai began collaborating at nonart sites, creating opportunities for dialogue and participation.

This thinking has been extended to consider the nature of museums and their possibilities. To this end Cai founded his own museum franchise dubbed Everything Is Museum. Inspired by artist Joseph Beuys’ philosophy that anyone can be an artist, Cai shifted that idea to propose that any place can be a museum and took on the role of curator, a specialist with a critical eye who selects a series of artworks and decides how they will be displayed. To date the Everything Is Museum series includes six interventions into unusual, abandoned sites such as pottery kilns, old bridges, and military bunkers. Collaborating with government officials, artisans, volunteers, and contemporary artists, Cai uses extraordinary leadership to realize these complex large-scale projects. Responding to the conditions of each new location for a project, he carefully considers its history and culture with the sensibility of an archaeologist or historian.

The BMoCA (Bunker Museum of Contemporary Art) was established on Kinmen Island, which for five decades was primarily a military garrison protecting Taiwan from Mainland China and where thousands of soldiers and civilians lost their lives during attacks by communist Chinese forces. This island held special meaning for Cai because he grew up in Mainland China in Quanzhou, a port city just across the Taiwan Strait, and remembered from his childhood the noise of bombers flying to and back from Taiwan and the explosive sounds of artillery. He dreamed of converting Kinmen’s network of vacant military bunkers into sites for art and creativity. For the inaugural BMoCA exhibition Cai invited 18 artists from China, Taiwan, and the Chinese diaspora to create site-specific works to transform Kinmen into a place for experimental artistic and community programs, including exhibitions by local schoolchildren.

In 2009 Cai plans to open QMoCA (Quanzhou Museum of Contemporary Art) in his hometown. This new structure will be designed by Norman Foster’s architectural firm, Foster + Partners, and function as a community-based museum and performance center. An exhibition documenting the Everything Is Museum series is on view in the Guggenheim Museum’s Sackler Center for Arts Education, where visitors are invited to create and display their own ideas for unique museum sites.

• Wang Wen-chih, born in Taiwan in 1959, is one of the 18 artists Cai invited to exhibit at BMoCA. At Nanshan Fortification Bunker No. 2, Wang worked with a group of craftsmen to build a bamboo and rattan artillery shell–shaped tower nearly 50 feet high and a network of tunnels that invite climbing and resting. He was interested in integrating the former war zone with its natural environment and providing a calm place for meditation: “My work searches for harmony after catastrophe or massive destruction.” What is your response to Wang’s work? Do you think he has accomplished his stated intention? Is this a place you would want to experience? Explain.
• In what ways is BMoCA different from museums you have experienced? In what ways is it similar?
• Would you have liked to participate in this project? Imagine you are one of the schoolchildren who were invited to transform a military bunker. Describe the type of space you would have created. What do you think you might learn and/or remember from this experience?
• For his Everything Is Museum projects Cai, an internationally known artist, takes on the job of curator, choosing the art that will be shown instead of creating it. Which job appeals to you more, artist or curator? Why?

• Cai has asserted that “everyone is an artist” and “everything is museum.” What do you think the artist means by these statements? Do you agree or disagree with his assertions? Explain.
  English / Language Arts


• For five decades, from 1949 until the 1990s, Kinmen’s strategic location, between Mainland China and Taiwan, placed the island at the center of ongoing tensions. Research the history of the conflict and have a class discussion about what you learn. How has Cai addressed this history in creating BMoCA?
  Social Studies


• If Cai were to come to your community looking for a site for another Everything Is Museum project, what site(s) would you suggest to him? Why? What do you think should be inside that museum space? Why?
  Social Studies


• During Cai’s exhibition, visitors will have the opportunity to create and display a model of their Everything Is Museum site in the Guggenheim Museum’s Sackler Center for Arts Education. Think of a real or imaginary structure that would make an interesting or unique site for a museum. It may be a familiar place or something from your wildest imagination. Create a sketch or paper model for your museum and describe the type of exhibitions one might see and/or experiences one might have while visiting it.
  Visual Arts


• When asked “What is a Chinese artist? What is an Asian artist? What is an international artist? What is a contemporary artist? What is a traditional artist?” Cai replied, “It is me, this is what I am. Our times have given us the opportunity to belong to every category.” After viewing Cai’s work do you agree? What aspects of his work can be deemed Chinese? Asian? International? Contemporary?
  English / Language Arts