Week 6- Anish Kapoor Sculpture

 Anish Kapoor

Cloud Gate (2004), Millennium Park, Chicago

Celebrated for his gigantic, stainless steel Cloud Gate sculpture in Chicago’s Millennium Park, Anish Kapoor is changing the cultural environment with his public works.

1.Research Kapoor's work in order to discuss whether it is conceptual art or not. Explain your answer, using a definition of conceptual art.

A: Anish Kapoor (Bombay, 1954) has lived in London since the early 1970s where he began his distinguished career as a student at Hornsey College of Art and Chelsea School of Art Design. Over the last 20 years, Kapoor has emerged as one of the most prolific and respected sculptors in the world. In July 2004, Kapoor unveiled his first-ever site-specific installation in the U.S. with a monumental work that anchors Millennium Park.

The internationally-acclaimed Anish Kapoor has had solo exhibitions of his work in venues such as the Guggenheim Museum in New York, Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, Kunsthalle Basel, Reina Sofia in Madrid and CAPC in Bordeaux. He has also participated internationally in many group shows at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, The Royal Academy and Serpentine Gallery in London; Documenta IX in Kassel; Moderna Museet in Stockholm; and Jeu de Paume and Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.（About the Artist: Anish Kapoor, 2010)

The defination of Conceptual art is: not about forms or materials, but about ideas and meanings. It cannot be defined by any medium of style, but rather by the way it questions what art is. In particular, conceprual art challenges the traditional status of the art object as unique, collectable or saleable.

                           Fountain, Marcel Duchamp, 1917


After reading the defination, and I think it is not excetly conceptual art, although most of his works are hard to understand and more focus on visual impact and feelings, and the sculptures are quite different from traditionals', like the defination mentioned, his art could not be defined by any style, his works are kind of a huge piece and soft shape, it's quite a kind of idea- a sheet of color. However one of an important point of conceptual art is not to make too many sculptures but pay more attentions on feelings.

2. Research 3 quite different works by Kapoor from countries outside New Zealand to discuss the ideas behind the work. Include images of each work on your blog.

                               Svayambh, 2007
A:
1)Against another white wall stood the large red wax work Stack. Kapoor commented on the juxtaposition of cool euclidean metals against the emotion of fleshy red wax, figuring it was “the right thing to do.”(2010)
I think this piece of work showes the movenment of how the red wax passing accross the "door", and because of the size, the large red wax left some part on the door, and after it passed, it is the exactly shape of the door.It seems like influenced by the science and industrilization period, because the work looks like the process of making something.

2）Most of Kapoor's works are kind of spacial, I think it's good for me that it's a great experiencess to get some information from him. After researched his work, I think he would love to use the couve to explain the movenment. In my opinion, this display is quite like to move inside to the point. It's quite mysterious to see into the hole. The bright color makes the work has more visul impact.
This magnificent work is a fine example of Anish Kapoor’s practice as one of the most significant sculptors of our time. Kapoor’s work draws on metaphysical theory and ideas of the sublime, while his use of colour emphasises the sensory in his sculpture. His spectacular and extraordinary works engage the viewer both physically and psychologically with their large scale and saturated colours.(GoMA,2009)

                  To Reflect an Intimate Part of the Red, 19813)It's another work of movenment, it showes the melting process or they are dropped on the floor, but before they fracture. He quite like to make a dark floor but white wall in the space. The stuffs in the space are quite like the toy for babies. I have no idea about he just want to make the pieces like this or just a simple shape. However, it's a great display that showing the movenment.

3.Discuss the large scale 'site specific' work that has been installed on a private site in New Zealand.

A: Marsyas, Anish Kapoor’s sculpture for the Turbine Hall, comprises three steel rings joined together by a single span of PVC membrane. Two are positioned vertically, at each end of the space, while a third is suspended parallel with the bridge. Seemingly wedged into place, the geometry generated by these three rigid steel structures determines the sculpture’s overall form, a shift from vertical to horizontal and back to vertical again.(The unilever series: Anish kapoor,2002)

It's quite interesting to see his work. Some of his works are large, but not this big. Same as other works, the color is bright, and contrast with green mountain. Red and Green are contrast colour, which make the space as an interesting feeling.

4. Where is the Kapoor's work in New Zealand? What are its form and materials? What are the ideas behind the work?

Anish Kapoor has undertaken the third in The Unilever Series of commissions for the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern.  (The unilever series: Anish kapoor,2002)

Marsyas, Anish Kapoor’s sculpture for the Turbine Hall, comprises three steel rings joined together by a single span of PVC membrane. Two are positioned vertically, at each end of the space, while a third is suspended parallel with the bridge. Seemingly wedged into place, the geometry generated by these three rigid steel structures determines the sculpture’s overall form, a shift from vertical to horizontal and back to vertical again. (The unilever series: Anish kapoor,2002)

Kapoor began the project in January 2002, soon realising that the only way he could challenge the daunting height of the Turbine Hall was, paradoxically, to use its length. He approached the space as a rectangular box with a shelf (the bridge) in the middle of it, and over many months, explored its potential through a series of drawings and sculptural maquettes. Human scale and the relationship of the viewer to the work was central to his thinking.

The PVC membrane has a fleshy quality, which Kapoor describes as being ‘rather like a flayed skin'. The title refers to Marsyas, a satyr in Greek mythology, who was flayed alive by the god Apollo. The sculpture’s dark red colour suggests something ‘of the physical, of the earthly, of the bodily.’ Kapoor has commented, ‘I want to make body into sky'. Marsyas confounds spatial perception, immersing the viewer in a monochromatic field of colour. It is impossible to view the entire sculpture from any one position. Instead we experience it as a series of discrete encounters, in which we are left to construct the whole.(The unilever series: Anish kapoor,2002)

5. Comment on which work by Kapoor is your favourite, and explain why. Are you personally attracted more by the ideas or the aesthetics of the work?

A: I prefer this kind of his works, it showes the movenment of how he make the
stuff and the process. Like I said in question 3, the design is influenced by industrilization, which is the period increasing technology.

There is something that kind of unsettling to me about this work by Anish Kapoor.  Something about the mass of it and that blade.  But it's also deliciously beautiful too.  It reminds me of lipstick or half a wheel of cheese.  I love this blood red colour that Kapoor uses a lot in his work. It's made of wax, paint and vaseline.(Sisalla, 2011)

Youtube has some excellent footage on Kapoor-take a look at Anish Kapoor at the Royal Academy.

www.royalacademy.org.uk › 
http://www.robgarrettcfa.com/thefarm.htm
http://www.billslater.com/cloudgate/

Dismemberment of Jeanne d’Arc- 

Old Municipal Market Building Brighton

Reference List:

1.About the Artist: Anish Kapoor (2010) Explore Chicago
            http://explorechicago.org/city/en/millennium/about_the_artist_0.html


2.(2010)
            http://artobserved.com/2010/12/ao-news-summary-first-ever-homecoming-exhibition-for-london-based-indian-artist-anish-kapoor-occupies-galleries-in-mumbai-and-new-delhi-until-february-27th-2011/


3.GoMA (2009) Anish Kapoor Untitled 2006-07 
            http://qag.qld.gov.au/exhibitions/past/recently_archived/anish_kapoor_untitled_2007


4.The unilever series: Anish kapoor (2002)


5.Sisalla (2011) Art Basel
            http://sisalla.blogspot.com/2011/07/art-basel.html