ART-PRESENTATION: Anish Kapoor-Surge

Anish Kapoor achieved international recognition in the 1980s as a member of the generation of new British sculptors. Since then, he has developed an oeuvre which stands out for its immense diversity and ambition, and has embraced both the intimacy of un-certain objects in interior space to the monumental scale of the urban and rural landscape.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Fundación Proa Archive

Anish Kapoor’s solo exhibition “Surge” at Fundación Proa in Buenos Aires presents major works from the last 40 years of his practice, from early pigment sculptures to his deepest interest in ritual materials. The exhibition presents iconic and unique sculptural languages the artist has become famous for working in. Through the mutability of their form materials such as wax, stone, pigment and steel take on qualities that transcend their materiality. From the monumental auto-generated wax sculpture “Svayambhu” (2007), to the form and formlessness of works that emerge from the architecture itself such as “When I am Pregnant” (1992), to the liminal space created by mirror works such as “Non-Object (Door)” (2008); Kapoor’s works are filled with oppositional dualities –interior/exterior, presence/absence, male/female. The confounding of these binary states creates objects and spaces both unknowable yet known, unfamiliar yet uncanny. Kapoor’s sculptures place the public in an uncertain terrain. Created in 2007 by the London-based artist, Anish Kapoor, the work “Svayambhu” takes it’s name from the Sanskrit word meaning self-generated or auto generated. The piece itself is a large piece of red wax laid on a track that moved through 5 different rooms at the Haus der Kunst in Munich. As the wax slowly moved from room to room it left behind it a trail of wax, both on the floor and on the doorways it passes through. This red trail is reminiscent of blood and calls to attention global conflict, more specifically persecution of those of the Jewish faith, a common theme in Kapoor’s works. The work relates to Bennett’s thoughts on moral principles.  Although in the piece the damage is being done by inorganic bodies both by the wax, in the case of the Haus der Kunst walls and floors, and to the wax, in the way in which the wax is worn down by the process of sliding across and through the space it is representative of the damage done to the organic bodies of those affected by conflict. The idea for the work “When I Am Pregnant” came to the artist on a trip to Uluru, the renowned sandstone rock formation in Australia. In his notes he wrote: “white form on white wall”. That is precisely what this work is. At first the exhibition space appears completely empty – the walls are freshly painted white, and the floor is devoid of objects. A round form resembling an abdomen in the later stages of pregnancy swells out of the wall. There are no edges or borders defining the form. The fluid character of the installation is made manifest in the spaces between the art and the architecture; it is at once a monochrome painting, a sculpture and an installation, as well as being a wall. “Dragon”, made from eight Japanese riverbed stones, crosses a number of languages of form in Kapoor’s work: the non-object, the auto-generated object, the monochrome, and the void.. Through the simple intervention of covering the stones in deep Prussian-blue pigment, a perceptual transformation of matter occurs. Its skin, as opposed to its interior, has become ethereal and boundless; stones that weigh nearly three tons each appear both heavy and weightless, as if floating above the ground. It is both what it once was and something else, an in-between object. These stones, formed in nature through the process of corrosion, absorb the pigment to create a surface imbued with void. “Double Vertigo” is comprised of two curved, reflective stainless steel planes (a tad Serra-esque) that alter spatial perception and create the illusion of standing in an infinite expanse. “Non-Object (Door)” is a cubic mirror that reflects on all its sides with a distorted form. This object is at the same time present and absent. Once alone, the mirrored surface makes the sculpture almost disappear by merging into its surroundings, having no image of itself other than a subtle distortion. This non-object becomes a gravitational point when another body comes next to it. “Shooting into the Corner II” consists of a cannon developed by Kapoor together with a team of engineers. A pneumatic compressor shoots 11-kilogram balls of wax into the corner across the room. Loud aggression on the one hand and silent growth on the other give the piece tension, sensuality, and compelling power. According to Kapoor, corners evoke the feminine, a place of crossing: where vertical meets horizontal, left meets right, convergence and divergence. Structural places of protection, at the same time a space of vulnerability. Whereas the gun is clearly a masculine icon. Shooting is the power surge, the burst of energy that breaks the code of stability. The uprising violent cannon that disrupt every so often the passivity of the receptive corner. This action can evoke multiple interpretations, but a very important element of this work is its condition of the present.

Info: Curator: Marcello Dantas, Fundación Proa, Av. Pedro de Mendoza 1929 La Boca, Caminito, Buenos Aires, Duration: 16/11/19-30/3/20, Days & Hours: Tue-Sun 11:00-19:00, www.proa.org