MeTube: CultureGrrl (with Cai’s help) is a Performance Artist

More from the Guggenheim’s Cai Guo-Qiang retrospective spectacular later. But first, CultureGrrl‘s video debut: Your intrepid reporter (with the help of two Guggenheim guards) gingerly stepped into a model of a Tibetan boat to “ride the serpentine river” through Cai’s “self-made retrospective”—a gallery installation called, “An Arbitrary History: River,” featuring artifacts from his own past (as well as some very contemporary live birds and snakes). It brought to mind an episode from my own history—“It’s a Small World After All.”
The ride is self-powered, though: You pull yourself along by the railings. (The guards did help me do the U-turn, and also manned my camera—probably a press perk.) Maybe the slightly giddy, dizzy feeling I experienced when I disembarked at the wood-planked dock was what Cai had in mind when he said that the gallery creates a “beneficial energy field” which is supposed to subject us to “a potential for vitalization.” The wall text said I was supposed to spend 20 minutes on this journey to get its full effect, but don’t try that if there are lots of children (or courageous reporters) waiting for their turn.
One thing’s for sure—I’ve never done this in a museum before: