Cai Yuan was born in Jiangsu Province, China, studying oil painting at the Nanjing College of Art. In the 1980s he moved to England, where he gained a BA from Chelsea College of Art and Design (1989), and an MA from the Royal College of Art, London (1991). A versatile artist, Cai has worked across a variety of media, including painting, photography, video, and performance. In the late 1990s, he started working with Chinese artist Xi Jianjun as a performance duo named Mad for Real whose controversial acts question societal norms and the institutional presentation of art.
Artist Cai Yuan was born in Jiangsu Province, China, in 1956. He studied oil painting at Nanjing College of Art, before moving to England to further his education, first attending Chelsea College of Art and Design in London in 1980, where he immersed himself in the vibrant art scene. By 1989, he had earned a BA degree from the same institution and subsequently graduated with an MA from the Royal College of Art in 1991. A versatile artist, Cai has worked across a variety of media, including painting, photography, video, and performance. However, his artistic journey took a significant turn when he began collaborating with Jianjun Xi, another Chinese artist living in England. Together, they founded Mad For Real in 1999, a group known for its provocative performances that intervene in art institutions and public places. Their collaboration is not only a partnership but a fusion of creative energies challenging societal norms and questioning the traditional boundaries of art.
In November 1999, Cai and Xi debuted as Mad For Real with a performance at Fordham Gallery, in London's East End. Their act, Soya Sauce Ketchup Fight transformed the whole gallery into a dynamic canvas, where the artists, armed with bottles of soya sauce, ketchup, and Coca-Cola, engaged in a spirited exchange that blurred the lines between playful confrontation and art. The performance unfolded in a small space with a glass front, allowing onlookers to witness the transformation of white walls with vivid splashes of colour and the floor into a pool of mixed liquids, suggesting the aftermath of violence. This performance was subsequently commissioned for the Liverpool Biennial in 2002. Other notable performances have included the controversial Two Artists Jump on Tracey Emin’s Bed at Tate Gallery (1999), and Two Artists Piss on Duchamp's Urinal at Tate Modern (2000). The former unfolded against the backdrop of Emin's installation My Bed, a dishevelled bed surrounded by the detritus of her life, including empty vodka bottles and used tissues, symbolising a raw and unfiltered glimpse into her personal and emotional landscape, and which was part of her nomination for the Turner Prize. Expanding upon Emin's theme of personal revelation, Cai and Xi appeared naked from the waist up, with provocative words such as ‘Communism’, ‘Anti-Stuckism’, ‘Optimism’, and ‘Freedom’ inscribed on their bodies in both English and Chinese. Their performance was not only an act of physical intrusion, but a profound statement about the nature of art itself. By leaping into Emin's bed, they sought to ‘push the idea further’ and challenge the audience to reconsider their perceptions of what constitutes good or bad art (cited in Wallace 1999). The duo’s critique extended beyond Emin’s work to the institutional setting that housed it. They argued that by placing such a personal and experiential piece in a museum, the curators were inadvertently stripping the work of its essence. A soiled bed, emblematic of human experience — corporeality, illness, sex, and vulnerability — becomes a mere spectacle once it is sanitised and placed, where it cannot be touched, behind museum barriers. Through their unauthorised performance, Cai and Xi highlighted the disconnect between art's lived experience and its institutional presentation, urging a re-evaluation of how art is consumed and understood within the formal confines of the art world. This performance was emblematic of Cai and Xi’s broader mission to disrupt the status quo of the art world, using their bodies and actions as mediums to provoke thought, challenge institutional norms, push the boundaries of viewer engagement, and to question the very definition of art itself.
In 2014, Cai completed a month-long project at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, pushing the boundaries of performance art and visitor interaction in a museum setting. In a bold move that challenged the conventional silence and decorum of museums, he embarked on an unconventional performance that involved screaming at the top of his lungs within the museum's hallowed halls, encouraging visitors to join him in this cathartic expression. This performance, resonant with themes of freedom, rebellion, and the breaking of cultural and societal norms, invited museum-goers to momentarily cast aside traditional expectations of behaviour in such spaces, offering a shared experience that was as unsettling as it was liberating. This act of collective vocal release not only blurred the lines between the artist and the audience, but also posed profound questions about the role of art and institutions in accommodating expressions of raw human emotion. By inviting public participation in such a disruptive act, Cai transformed the museum space into a dynamic arena for experiential art, challenging perceptions of the museum as a place of quiet contemplation and redefining it as a space where art can happen in the most unexpected and interactive ways. Cai lives and works between Oxford and Beijing. His work is not currently represented in UK public collections.