Cai Guo-Qiang set a new record for a Chinese contemporary work at auction this week when a set of 14 drawings for Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) fetched a double-estimate $9.5 million. The drawings, which Cai created by igniting traces of gunpowder on large sheets of paper resulting in burn patterns and Cy Twombly-ish pockmarks, reference Cai's pyrotechnic performance at the 2001 APEC conference, attended by George W. Bush and then-Chinese chairman Jiang Zemin.

The work was the top lot of a quadruple-estimate $108 million sale at Christie's in Hong Kong--the kickoff of a five-day spending spree and the further rise of commerce and culture in China over communism and censorship.

Born in Quanzhou City, Fujian Province, China, in 1957, Cai first came to international attention during his years in Japan (1986-95) with his series "Projects for Extraterrestrials," with the aim of reaching distant galactic audiences but as far as we know confined to earthly attendees in locales like Berlin, Hiroshima, Johannesburg, Oxford, and Vienna. In 2002, an exhibition devoted to Cai's work at the Shanghai Art Museum crowned him the first contemporary artist to be granted a one-person show in a government-run art museum in China.

Now a resident of New York, Cai has left his imprint all over Manhattan with firework extravaganzas from Central Park to the East River. Early next year, the Guggenheim will exhibit the record-setting gunpowder drawings, which sold to an anonymous buyer, in "Cai Guo-Qiang: I Want to Believe." Museum-phobes might check out Cai's contribution to Beijing's opening and closing ceremonies at the upcoming Steven Spielberg-approved (maybe) Olympic spectacular.

--Kelly Devine Thomas