1. Cloud Gate - Kapoors 'Cloud Gate' also commonly called 'The Bean' is a public sculpture which was built between 2004 - 2006 and is the centre piece of the AT&T centre in Millennium Park, Chicago. The sculpture was inspired around the properties of liquid mercury. Kapoor often speaks of removing both the signature of the artist from his works as well as any traces of their fabrication, or what he refers to as "traces of the hand". http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/20/arts/design/20kenn.html?_r=1. Evidence of this is the fact that when the artwork was revealed in July 2004, it wasn’t completely finished. The seams were not yet welded and were still fully visible, much to the artist’s dismay. For him removing the seams from 'Cloud Gate' was necessary in order to make the sculpture seem perfect and readymade. What I wanted to do in Millennium Park is make something that would engage the Chicago skyline… so that one will see the clouds kind of floating in, with those very tall buildings reflected in the work. And then, since it is in the form of a gate, the participant, the viewer, will be able to enter into this very deep chamber that does, in a way, the same thing to one’s reflection as the exterior of the piece is doing to the reflection of the city around. –Anish Kapoor
http://www.millenniumpark.org/artandarchitecture/cloud_gate.html
C Curve - Kapoors ' C Curve is a concave mirror made in 2007 and is located in Brighton, England. His intentions were to distort reality and create the 'limitless'. When visitors look at it from one side it looks normal but when looked at from the other side the reflection appears upside down. This is caused by a concave mirror which reflects light to a focal point very close to the mirror. Thus the reflection appears inverted.
Svayambh - Was an instillation at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Nantes and Munich’s Haus der Kunst where a huge beet red sculpture flows from one gallery to another, almost like a train car sliding through on matching red tracks. http://mocoloco.com/art/archives/004804.php. The material is a mix of wax and paint which coats the gallery doorways adding the impression that a vehicle like sculpture has moved through. It is titled 'Svayambh' which means 'self generated'. A constant theme of Kapoors removing any 'Traces of the hand' as it were.
2. Allan Gibbs owns 'The Farm' which is a large (1000 acre farm) which holds some of the finest contemporary sculpture in the world. Kapoor’s first outdoor sculpture in fabric, “The Farm” (the sculpture is named after its site), is designed to withstand the high winds that blow inland from the Tasman Sea off the northwest coast of New Zealand’s North Island.
3. "The Farm' is located on Allan Gibbs private outdoor art collection in Kaipara. In 2009 Gibbs commissioned Kapoor to create a sculpture for his site. Kapoor came up with a custom deep red PVC-coated polyester fabric, two ellipses one horizontal and one vertical with longitudinal mono-filament cables between the two ellipses creating a perfect circle in the centre of the sculpture and distorting and twisting the fabric to create the unique shape of the sculpture. It is made to withstand the wind that blows in from the Tasman Sea but it also enhances the sculpture giving it a 'breath' of life if you will, it seems alive.
4. My favorite work by Kapoor is 'Svayambh'. This instillation/sculpture is so interesting as it creates itself in a sense and makes me feel uneasy as I watch it being 'squished' through the doorways of the gallery. I feel as if I should stop it because it feels like it is doing something which is physically impossible and either the walls are going to break or it will.
Good man Johny i like your thoughts on your favorite work by Kapoor with the 'Svayambh'. I had not seen this work until reading your blog and it to gives me this unease feeling as if something is about to happen whether it breaks or we do. I also like how you say it gives the impression of something that is physically impossible. I feel that Kapoors work are almost alien like something that the world has never seen and it intrigues people as to why it is there. The way that his work interacts with people is giving his objects human like qualities which i freaky and very futuristic.
ReplyDeleteI agree your posting. I really like his work because my major is interior and architecture design in korea. so I am interested about installation. My favorite his work is Cloud Gate. When I saw his work at first time, I shouted because I was amazing and I Really like huge special design and his work can reflect of sky and buildings so it is beautiful things to me, of course I am sure that many people which visit his work's area. so it is my favorite work of Anish Kapoor and I wanna visit to Millennium Park I really hope that !!!!
ReplyDeleteMy favourite work from the research is also 'Svayambh'. although his other works are vey clean and finished off (i.e. cloud gate) which is something that i love about his work...im really interested in his experimentation with the wax and also the colour red. the process that the work undergoes, continually transforming, is unique because the work is creating itself instead of the work being dependent on the artists continual input for that transformation to occur. he lets the work 'occur' on its own. i think its really important for an artist to sometimes step back from their own work and let go, not be in control of it. it shows a different type of committment to the journey of the work and in the case of 'Svayambh' keeps the work true to its name- 'self generating'...Kapoor is also honest about his motivation- he is not always sure where the work will end up but is interested in the journey. i think the red also adds drama to the work so that the train can be read in many different ways; because as Kapoor says: "red is a controversial colour".
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