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| Cloud Gate (2004), Millennium Park, Chicago |
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.
Conceptual art is not about forms or materials, but about ideas and meanings. It cannot be defined by any medium or style, but rather by the way it questions what art is. In particular, Conceptual art challenges the traditional status of the art object as unique, collectable or saleable. (Godfrey, 1998)
Conceptual art is thus highly intellectual, abstract, and typically doesn't aim for the mere appreciation of a physical object.
Anish Kapoor created a work of art that holds something for everyone. It reflects the splendor that is the Chicago skyline. It plays tricks with the light and the sky. It is massive, giving it weight and importance. It is elegant -- balanced on its ends and without any color of its own. And finally, it is interactive, and lets the viewer become part of the art or stand back and let the simple act of walking, turning, or even just swaying change the visual presented by the sculpture. Kapoor calls his creation "Cloud Gate" because 80 percent of its surface reflects the sky. A walk under its nine-foot-tall arch can be a mind-bending experience. (Cloud Gate, http://www.chicagoarchitecture.info/Building/636/Cloud-Gate.php)
If Kapoor's reflecting surfaces explore the symbolic nature of reality, they also evoke the role of mirror images in the constitution of the human body. (Leader, 2011)
If Kapoor's reflecting surfaces explore the symbolic nature of reality, they also evoke the role of mirror images in the constitution of the human body. (Leader, 2011)
Therefore, the Cloud Gate sculpture is conceptual art. It is very futuristic and was inspired by liquid mercury.
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.
Anish Kapoor, Void Field (1990)
© Anish Kapoor
Shown at the 1990 Venice Biennale
© Anish Kapoor
Shown at the 1990 Venice Biennale
Void Field (1990) is 16 stone blocks weighing between 4 - 6 ton each. They all have a small hole drilled in the top of them that is painted Prussian blue, which is like looking into a well. The idea is to recognise an object not just through its apparent weight and form, but through its skin. Kapoor wanted the viewer to question what it was they were looking at. (Anish Kapoor: “Memory” at the Guggenheim, 2009)
Leviathan (2011) gives the viewer a chance to actually go inside the sculpture, which is made out of a red rubber material. It has monochrome walls that are 37 metres high. The idea behind red is to bring us to thoughts of our origins. Once inside the structure, it opens out into three more pod-like spaces. When the sun comes out, it projects a web-like patterns of the Grand Palais's roof over the rounded surfaces. The piece is a play of structure and scale that alludes to the idea of the cathedral: the body as living, breathing sacred space, inside a structure that is literally cathedral-like. (Anish Kapoor - Leviathan, 2011)
Anish Kapoor with his latest installation in the royal academy courtyard on Piccadilly
Tall Tree and the Eye, Stainless steel, 13×5×5 metres
Tall Tree & the Eye, 2009
Stainless steel and carbon steel
14 x 6 m
Courtesy the artist
Installation: Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, 2010
Photo: Erika Ede © FMGB Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa, 2010
Stainless steel and carbon steel
14 x 6 m
Courtesy the artist
Installation: Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, 2010
Photo: Erika Ede © FMGB Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa, 2010
Tall Tree and the Eye, (2009) is a 15 metre high steel structure made up of 76 shiny spheres which bubble up to the level of the surrounding Palladian buildings. You cannot tell how it has been put up and that is part of its mystery and dignity. The idea behind the he structure is to send a message out about nature and how things appear. Through its complex use of light and shade, volume and space, it makes us aware of the instability of the visible world. Time and place are suspended and altered. Though it is a very large piece of sculpture it comes across as somehow weightless and ephemeral.
3. Discuss the large scale 'site specific' work that has been installed on a private site in New Zealand.
Dismemberment, Site 1, 2003-2009, PVC and Steel, 25 x 84x 25m, The Farm, Kaipara Bay, New Zealand
The work is 84 metres long. At one end is an elipse which is horizontal and at the other end the elipse is vertical. There is a perfect circle in the midspan. Thirty-two longitudinal mono-filament cables provide displacement and deflection resistance to the wind loads while assisting with the fabric transition from horizontal ellipse, to a perfect circle at midspan, through to the vertical ellipse at the other end. I feel that I want to walk through this work and come out at the other end.Reality itself becomes a sound device, as we see in the extraodinary Dismemberment, Site 1, 2003-2009, in which a vast hearing apparatus emerges out of the countryside. (Leader, 2011)
4. Where is the Kapoor's work in New Zealand? What are its form and materials? What are the ideas behind the work?
His work "site specific" is on Alan Gibbs' sculpture park called "The Farm" in Kaipara Bay. It is an 84m-long, twisted, red cone, which cuts through a ridge like some celestial megaphone. The sculpture is fabricated in a custom deep red PVC-coated polyester fabric by Ferrari Textiles supported by two identical matching red structural steel ellipses that weigh 42,750kg each. The fabric alone weighs 7,200kg. 32 mono-filament cables provide displacement and deflection resistance to the high winds that blow inland off the Tasman Sea toward Kapoor's sculpture on the New Zealand coastline. The idea of the sculpture, which passes through a carefully cut hillside, is to provide a kaleidoscopic view of the beautiful Kaipara Harbor at the vertical ellipse end and the hand contoured rolling valleys and hills of “The Farm” from the horizontal ellipse.
"Kapoor's mirrored works, which have been installed in many public sites throughout the world, draw in their surroundings so that they become part of the objects themselves. " (Peyton-Jones & Obrist, 2011). I like his reflective works very much. They can be installed in different sites and give us different views.
Sky Mirror, Pavilion Gardens, Brighton Festival, 2009My favourite is the Sky Mirror because you can see the reflection of different views from different angles. You can see the sky or what might be above your head without even moving your neck upward. I am more attracted by the idea, because this mirror can easily be transported and moved into a new location, which will give an entirely different picture. Also, when the mirror is pointing skyward and the clouds are moving, the mirror turns it into a motion picture.
Sky Mirror, 2006, brings us such diverse context when it had been displayed at the Rockefeller Center in New York and Buck Hill in Kensington Gardens. "This power to create a sense of belonging with each siting adds to the magic of these works. The sculptures will reflect the changing seasons, as well as develop a dialogue with existing sculptures in the park.
It reflecting the sky onto the earth, Kapoor's Sky Mirrors create associations not only with 18th century landscape paintings, but also share notions of Romanticism and the Subline. (Peyton-Jones & Obrist, 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/
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REFERENCES:
Godfrey, T. (1998). Conceptual Art. London: Phaidon Press.
Conceptual art. Retrieved August 30, 2011, from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/conceptual-art/
Webb, P. (2010). Anish Kapoor-Sky Mirror. Retrieved August 30, 2011, from http://poulwebb.blogspot.com/2010/10/anish-kapoor-sky-mirror.html
Anish Kapoor: “Memory” at the Guggenheim. (2009). Retrieved August 30, 2011, from http://accessibleartny.com/index.php/2009/10/anish-kapoor-memory-at-the-guggenheim/
Hudson, M. (2011). Anish Kapoor: Leviathan, Monumenta 2011, Grand Palais,Paris, review. Retrieved August 30, 2011, from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-reviews/8506594/Anish-Kapoor-Leviathan-Monumenta-2011-Grand-PalaisParis-review.html
http://venicebiennale.britishcouncil.org/timeline/1990/image/19
http://www.anishkapoor.com/391/Tall-Tree-and-the-Eye.html
Thorpe, V. (2009). Anish Kapoor unveils new sculpture at Royal Academy of Arts: The artist marks a solo show at the Royal Academy with a striking new sculpture. Retrieved August 30, 2011, from
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/sep/20/anish-kapoor-sculpture-royal-academy
