Anish Kapoor Sculpture

What is Conceptual art?

Conceptual art is art that is concerned with/ demonstrates the definitions or relations of concepts rather than the facts. Kapoor’s work is definitely conceptual as his work doesn’t represent or reference something in particular but rather discusses concepts of light, form, reflection etc. The sculptures he creates are representative of his perspective therefore his own conceptual ideas.

Kapoor’s work “Svayambh” (2007), which is Sanskrit for “self-generated” is a mixture of paint, wax and Vaseline forming a deep red block which moves through five rooms at a gallery in central London. The block moves like a carriage on train tracks, slowly. As the block is larger than the doorways it has to squeeze through, therefore leaving a residue outlining each door way, Kapoor describes "It's as if it's skinning itself as it goes through the doors," Kapoor has allowed the architecture of the gallery space to shape the art and be “affected by the contours of space”.

                                               “Svayambh” (2007),

“Double mirror” (1998) looks at reflection and “making emptiness”. Two concave mirrors face each other on opposite walls creating “an apparent lack of reflection”. When standing inside the double mirror the visual range is bounced off each mirror and away from the viewer leaving the viewer with nothing. “The curious thing about double mirrors, concave mirrors, when you put them together, is that they don’t give you an infinite repeatability”

                                            “Double mirror” (1998)

“I’m very interested in the way that they seem to reverse, affirm and then negate…to place the viewer with these blinding mirrors in this narrow passage…where time and space are seemingly absent, at a standstill.” Kapoor thinks about how we as the viewer can engage with his sculptures so that we are able to understand his point of view.

 

“When I am pregnant”(1992) consists of a convex form pushing out of the wall “This "push" of the artwork from the other side of the wall becomes the image of the spiritual force that brings matter to life, a metaphor for the living.” The form can only be noticed from its profile as it appears as just a white wall front on. Kapoor is obsessed with the idea of space and the qualities it can present us with "The idea that if I empty out all the content and just make something that is an empty form, I don't empty out the content at all. The content is there in a way that is more surprising than if I tried to make a content."

                                           “When I am pregnant”(1992)

  The work "Dismemberment: Site 1" is situated in Kaipara Bay, New Zealand on “Gibbs Farm”. The work spans 85m across the 1000 acre farm. Alan Gibbs contacted Kapoor “to devise a form that was both freestanding and capable of surviving a constant arm-wrestle with the sky and the mercurial weather conditions.”

The structure consists of a PVC skin stretched between two steel ellipses Kapoor describes it as “rather like a flayed skin”.

                                           "Dismemberment: Site 1"

 I am in love with the New Zealand situated work Dismemberment: Site 1. The bold red stands out incredibly against the green landscape. I like the idea that you could almost climb inside it and thinking about what it would feel like to be inside such an unusual form. The structure reminds me of a stretched elastic band, the way the PVC is stretched so tightly between the two ellipses. Personally I am more attracted to the aesthetics of something as I think if you are creating art why can’t you have something that is both aesthetically excellent AND has a great idea behind it as oppose to a work having a really innovative idea but looking like crap. Art to me is all about the aesthetics so if I see something that looks bold and interesting then that is what engages me to want to know more about it.

Reference list:

http://jfkwalks.wordpress.com/2009/11/29/anish-kapoor-perception-and-deception/

http://www.sculpture.net/community/showthread.php?t=6790

http://ambush.wordpress.com/2007/11/28/svayambh-anish-kapoor/

http://urc.kon.org/2011/06/updated_finding_everything_in.html

http://www.monumenta.com/en/2011/medias/view/17/when-i-am-pregnant-1992

http://www.gibbsfarm.org.nz/kapoor.php

Bhabha, H K& Tazzi, P L (14/6/98) “Anish Kapoor,” London, Hayward Gallery.