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.

I think kapoor’s work is conceptual art in the sense that his art is full of ideas and also confusing, confusing because the materials, the colours, and the shapes used in his work don’t go in the same ways than the landscape or the surround. “Conceptual Art is a contemporary form of artistic representation, in which a specific concept or idea, often personal, complex and inclusive, takes shape in an abstract, nonconforming manner, based upon a negation of aesthetic principles.It is different from "Concept" as the content of art, but can be considered an abstract form of the idea and perception of the artwork originating in the artist's mind, which is later displayed in a proposed structure, and a variety of forms.”

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.

 

His work “sky mirrors” is really disturbing, I first thought it was a photoshoped picture because it’s so unthinkable, “what the sky is doing on the grass?”. In my opinion Anish Kapoor might wanted to show people how the time is going, the sky was the only guide for us to have the notion of the time, even to give directions (Polynesians used to navigate through stars).

 

“Yellow” is a kind of illusion, you may have said “what a great painting, he succeed to make us feel the deepness” it’s actually difficult to think of a non-flat wall through the picture, but this work actually isn’t flat it has a deepness. Anish kapoor really like playing with strong and bright colours, the yellow used fascinate me, and the deepness give a gradient to the yellow that make me feel attracted by it, like something breaking conventions we used to know.

 his work “svayambh” is a giant piece of red wax moving slowly through rails, the wax can’t fit to the doors, so it depose wax on the door and get the shape of it. The first thing I thought when I saw this work was my childhood, playing with clay, a piece of clay pushed into objects to get the shapes of it. The colours involved in this work actually attract much more the viewers.

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

Kapoor’s work in New Zealand is situated in Kaipara Bay in the north of Auckland, “it is designed to withstand the high winds that blow inland from the Tasman Sea off the northwest coast of New Zealand’s North Island.”  this work is made of deep red PVC, it weight 42,750kg and it resists to the wind loads. This work looks like a twisted tube in which both extremity form an ellipse one horizontal (hills side) and the other vertical (Kaipara harbour side). This sculpture is on a hill split in two.

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

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?

I do really like his work "yellow", I can see his interests in it, I found out that most of his works looks like "Dark holes",They have always fascinated me because it's the only place where time, light, sound, physical condition had completely changed the rules. Some scientific came out with the idea that "Dark holes" is a portal to another space-time and the drawing they've made looks like "the farm" or "yellow", Anish Kapoor made really interesting work, it challenge the viewer to think differently rather than following the rules the human came out with.




http://www.whattoseeinparis.com/anish-kapoor-paris/
http://unitb-responsivearchitecture.blogspot.com/2009/11/anish-kapoor.html
http://www.caroun.com/art/conceptualart/conceptualart.html



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/

Dismemberment of Jeanne d’Arc- 

Old Municipal Market Building Brighton