Essay Artist - Anish Kapoor

Essay on Artist - Anish Kapoor 

Born in Bombay and lives in London, is the mind-blowing Anish Kapoor who boasts and ever-growing list of experience and no doubt, creativity. He holds an honorary doctorate degree from the University of Oxford, which he achieved in 2014. The 55-year old artist, who is also considered to be one of the biggest names in Art worldwide at the moment, works in five large industrial units based in London. His decision to choose art was in Israel where he lived for 3 years, before heading off to London to study it. At school he found a role model to flourish his creativity more than he had, by the name of Paul Neagu. He's mostly famous for creating assumptions of the real world with diverse materials he works with for large-scaled pieces, most of them outdoors. His most popular piece would be the "Cloud Gate", based in the Millennium Park of Chicago, which attracts and swallows the viewers into a different aspect to their surrounding ground.

Kapoor's pieces remind me of Dali's work, only that they are a 3D real version of them. When comparing his work, the elements that make them abnormal are quite evident to those of Dali's liquified objects which give reality a different window to look at. The aspect that they both familiarize in,  is a third eye which experiments with the vision around us, and explore diverse methods to create a tangible imagination in real space. The use of reflective metal finish enables this interaction with the public.  

Kapoor goes by the term of size matters to the eyes as he produces pieces of a large scale as he explores artistic visual illusions with materials, shapes, forms, weightiness and abstractions. Picasso once said "Color is Red", which clearly influences this artist by his use of beautiful soothing red vibrating on his pieces, which we also see in the image below, only that this has a gloss finish to it.

I also observe how his concept of vision resembles that of sculptures produced in the Modernism period. The difference is that for Kapoor, it is the resulting vision that creates the look Modernism offers. The twisting and manipulation of objects that are real is what Modernism offered and Kapoor is embracing.

With the way he experiments and innovates as if he is living in the Modernism period, I think he  uses large scale pieces in contrast to how we use every single space we have available for modern things in our modern controlled life, he uses it to experiment with Art and let people discover their through environment, making it more appealing for the people to appreciate it. It is perhaps how we recognize the influence of the Indian way of thinking, where the ancient Indians set themselves a way which was opposite to their norms and ethnic cousins in the West. Also the Greeks loved distinctions, oppositions, contrast and debate. It is also the Mannerism period which influences Kapoor as he plays with distortion and difficult questions which people experienced the same as when Mannerism was taking place, it was something new and weird, with questions needing to be answered, just like Kapoor's works in our modern time.

This piece impressed me on how he creates deep space with just a single color on a large scale. The softness of the material creates an exploration that doesn't give you an impression of being sucked to a hole in an unpleasant way like we normally imagine for Black Holes. It makes you appreciate more what the simplest things and shapes trigger you to think and observe with them.

The Post-Modern Abstract artist seems to make use of the colors essential in De Stijl. This enables more order to his work as the De Stijl artists followed to achieve in their period. As Kapoor's work shine with perfection, pure aesthetic and beauty of overall visual discipline, order is essential in his works... Maybe this is why he uses the same colors with the same saturation and vibrance.

In this work above, Kapoor makes a direct connection with Caravaggio's painting including St Thomas and Jesus Christ. It is a symbol of space as he always conceives, where he gives meaning of how just as a wound makes a person conscious of the rest of their healthy body, the slit in the wall brings self-confidence to the reality of the rest of the void. It makes the viewer's eyes crawl to the wound just like St Thomas' did.  

The modernism in Kapoor's work stays vibrating, filling space to trigger our attention for a moment from our busy lives outdoor. His vision for manipulation with a clean eye offers a large window for artists around the world to focus on looking forward in every aspect of their works, just like Futurists did. His simplicity is complex at its gentle meaning to what the pieces are produced for and with. In my opinion he isn't afraid to what the public has to say and thus he feels confident on his works that are flourishing maybe Post-Minimalism, reflecting our way of moving forward without leaving past behind, but not directly visioning it to the public. That is a complex storm in the artist's mind that in my opinion needs to be done by more artists around like Jeff Koons. 

Bibliography -

Cookies must be enabled. | The Australian. 2015. Cookies must be enabled. | The Australian. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/review/spiritual-paradox-at-play-in-the-work-of-anish-kapoor/story-fn9n8gph-1226565965236. [Accessed 20 April 2015].

Anish Kapoor: Past, Present, Future at ICA - Berkshire . 2015. Anish Kapoor: Past, Present, Future at ICA - Berkshire . [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.berkshirefinearts.com/06-06-2008_anish-kapoor-past-present-future-at-ica.htm. [Accessed 20 April 2015].

Mannerism Art Movement. 2015. Mannerism Art Movement. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/history-of-art/mannerism.htm. [Accessed 20 April 2015].

Undergraduate Research Journal for the Human Sciences. 2015.Undergraduate Research Journal for the Human Sciences. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.kon.org/urc/v8/sexton.html. [Accessed 20 April 2015].