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.

Conceptual art is more about the planning, the drawings and the initial ideas forming the finished product. ‘ The idea becomes a machine that makes the art.’ - Sol LeWitt. So in relation to this instillation, I would say it is conceptual art. The work is a prime example of a thought out idea process, which makes this work so successful. With the ideas of distortion and the artist personal relationship with Chicago where the sculpture is placed.

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.

‘Yellow’

Yellow is a large scale instillation , the colour was chosen in referring back to Kapoor’s Indian roots. The piece is very bold and the vivid colour draws attention. The work plays with our ideas of perspective, our eyes are drawn to the strong colour as much as they are to the void in the middle, Kapoor says ‘... It’s that phenomenological shift that brings uncertainty, that asks the question about what it is that we’re looking at. ... I hope that somewhere in that is a moment of poetry.’ To get the smooth finished look that is shown in this piece of work the sculpture is meticulously moulded and smoothed down before the yellow pigment can start to be applied. 

‘Svayambh’

The work is named Svayambh, from a Sanskrit word meaning self-generated or auto-generated. The material, which coats the doorways, is a mix of wax, paint and Vaseline, adding to the impression that the car-like structure has passed through leaving the tracks.

‘Orbit’

Orbit is a 115 metre-high sculpture designed created for the 2012 Olympic park. It’s a steel tower that gives panoramic views of the City. A 455 step staircase wraps around the exterior of the tower. 250 coloured spotlights illuminate it at night. ‘“Anish and I were conscious from the beginning that the ArcelorMittal Orbit would be a lasting legacy to the city and so we wanted to stretch the language of the icon as far we could go. The Orbit is a hybrid, a network of art and structure, and its dynamic is the non-linear. You read into it multiple narratives in space.” - Cecil Balmond

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

 This large ‘site specific’ was installed at “The Farm,”  1,000 acre  private estate outdoor art gallery in Kaipara Bay, north of Auckland, New Zealand.

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

“I am interested in sculpture that manipulates the viewer into a specific relationship with both space and time.” –Anish Kapoor, Tate Magazine, July 2007

This work is located Kaipara Bay, North of Auckland. The materials used to create this installation were a deep red polyester fabric supported by red structural steel. The fabric itself weighs 7,200kg and the steel 42,750kg each! The ideas behind this work were to provide a ‘kaleidoscope’ to show off the magnificent views that keen be seen from this site at Kaipara Bay. Once again, like most of Kapoor’s work, he aimed to create some sort of distortion or relationship between the space and the viewer.

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?

My favourite work done by Kapoor would have to be the sculpture ‘orbit.’ I enjoy this sculpture the most because of the dynamics and aesthetics. I enjoy the fact that you can see panoramic views of the city also the way in which the sculpture has been shaped.

http://www.anishkapoor.com/322/Cloud-Gate.html

http://www.nouse.co.uk/2009/12/18/anish-kapoor-at-the-royal-academy-a-conversation-with-dr-adrian-locke/

http://fabricarchitecturemag.com/articles/0110_sk_sculpture.html

http://gibbsfarm.org.nz/kapoorvideo.php