Fire is the second part of the 五行. 五行 are the five phases that make up Chinese cosmology. Each discourse is a type of conversation about the universe. As the second phase, fire is the height of yang. It’s the most yang. Fire is literally energy exploding and lighting everything up, making what exists self evident. Fire illuminates the whole room. You can literally see when you have fire or light.

This is the second article in a series where we will look at some modern and contemporary artists through the lens of Chinese astrology. We’re going to only look at sculptors because materiality is too limited when it comes to painting. Sculptors can use whatever mediums they want. We’re also limited by publicly available birth info. Not all artists have their birth info public so we can only work with artists whose birthdays are known. When we look at these artists, we’re going to take special notice of the day stem because that is the part of the chart that represents the person themselves.

Here are some characteristics of fire—it affects everything. You can’t stop fire the same way you can’t stop light from shining. Fire also loses heat because it expels heat outwards. Yang is at its height and is about to become exhausted. Fire also reaches upwards and is found in the sky in the form of the sun.

I actually found a ton of artists with fire day stems. It was hard to choose which artists to feature in this article. Iza Genzken, Alexander Calder, Mike Kelley, and Frida Kahlo are all yang fire day stems. There’s also a truck load of yin fire artists: Anish Kapoor, Brancusi, Ana Mendieta just to name a few.

This makes a lot of sense. Actually, fire is about culture and art. This is because fire illuminates things and makes them visible. That’s why fire is literally the visible arts. The Chinese word for brightness is also the word for culture and art.

Let’s look at Yayoi Kusama’s chart. She is a fire tiger, making her day stem yang fire:



Now, let’s look at an image of yang fire. Yang fire is literally the sun because it’s the light that is available during the day. Here’s a picture of the sun:



Next, let’s look at one of Kusama’s better known works. This piece is called Fireflies on Water:



Here’s another Kusama work. This one is called The Souls of a Million Light Years Away.



One thing that you always hear about the behavior of fire within the schema of Chinese astrology is that it moves in all directions. You can really see that in Kusama’s works. There’s no end so where your eye can reach when it comes to these works because you can always keep seeing more beyond the horizon of the mirrors. There is always more to see.

Kusama isn’t the only yang fire person to work with reflective surfaces, surfaces that capture the light of the sun. Quite a bit of them do. Iza Genzken’s sculptures are reflective surfaces crinkled up, hung over the viewer, or elongated to scale the body of the viewer. She is a fire dragon which is also yang fire.

Kusama also isn’t the only yang fire person whose works photograph incredibly well. In fact, I think that photographing well is one of the things that a Kusama is best known for. Frida Kahlo photographs well. Mike Kelley photographs well. Both Frida Kahlo and Mike Kelley are fire dragons just like Iza Genzken. When you think of a Mike Kelley, you imagine the man himself. When you think of a Frida Kahlo, you imagine the woman. When you think of a Yayoi Kusama, you imagine her standing next to it in matching polka dots. The only yang fire artist that this doesn’t seem to apply to is Iza Genzken who is known for being so reclusive that she refuses to appear at her own shows.

Let’s look at an artist whose day stem is yin fire now. Do you want to guess who this is?



Think about what yin fire is. Yin fire is light that you would use at night. It’s lamps and candles. Which artist works with not reflected light but light that you can hold with your hand or put into a corner of a room? You don’t have to think too hard about this one. The answer is fairly obvious.



That’s right. Dan Flavin is a yin fire day stem. He uses electric light. When do you use electric light? You use it at night in the darkness. This is yin fire. Yin fire is a lamp that you use to light a dark room at night. It’s a little candle. It’s a little electric light. This is yin fire:



I’m not that interested in Dan Flavin so let’s take a look at another artist. I only used Flavin because he’s so well known for using light and his astrology shows that he is light encased in metal. That’s a little uncanny. Ana Mendieta is also a yin fire person and she has worked with fire too.

Anyway, there is an artist that I really wanted to show you. This is the chart of Mona Hatoum:



She is also yin fire. Hatoum is a fire pig which is a fire that lights up a winter night. If we were to turn this into a landscape, it would probably be something like a small fire or light in the middle of a cold winter. Here are some of Hatoum’s sculptural works.





Hatoum works a lot with the theme of besiegement. She uses a lot of bars and cages. However, it’s not the cage itself that is the focus of the work. The cage is the frame of the work. Within Hatoum’s cages are lights. These are lights used for heat, lights used for seeing, lights that bring life to cribs, and lights inside of smaller cages inside of the big cage itself. The cage is cold. The fire is warm.

There’s a joke among biologists. The joke is that fire satisfies all of the conditions for life except that it is not alive. Fire reproduces. It moves on its own. Fire also consumes. When we are close to fire, we feel it as something that is alive. This is why we light candles to speak to spirits.

Yin fire, called ding, is fire that asks for nurture. You have to feed a campfire to keep it going. You have to protect it and shield it from the wind. But you can’t keep it caged because fire can always destroy its container. Fire reaches out and escapes. Seeing Hatoum’s lights in cages, you’re aware of lights and the cages but you’re also aware that you can feel the light through the cage. The lights feel like spirits that ask for your attention.

Fire is about appearance. It’s the appearance of life. Without the sun, fire, the moon, and the stars we wouldn’t be able to see. Light directs our attention and makes us aware of something. Our lines of sight follow a similar pattern, flickering around from object to object. You can’t stop someone from seeing something. You can’t stop the sun from shining and you can’t stop fire from escaping. Awareness is something that can’t be stopped or interrupted.