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Lot Essay
‘It seemed to me vital to insist that abstract language has not only metaphoric possibility but is, if you like, proto. Abstract artists have to go to the beginning, go to where things start, right from day one.’ – Anish Kapoor
‘I believe in aesthetic awe. A king of wonder. I think what it does to the object is very interesting. And what it does to one’s perspective as the viewer is fascinating.’ – Anish Kapoor
In Anish Kapoor’s Untitled, tessellated hexagonal tiles have been fused together to form a mosaic of mirror. Executed in 2011, Untitled is one in Kapoor’s series of fragmented concave mirrors each of which takes on and embodies the properties of its surrounding environs. Luminescent in stainless steel, the work appears to vibrate as it reflects the greater world. This unstable and unfixed surface
is the essence of Untitled’s magnetism and fundamental to Kapoor’s practice overall: ‘It’s become a central content in the work, this idea of the non-object, the uncertain object, the object that is, if you like posing a philosophical problem’ (A. Kapoor quoted in conversation with Julia Peyton-Jones and Hans Ulrich Obrist, Anish Kapoor: Turning the World Upside Down, ex. cat. London: D.A.P, 2011, p. 59). As his mirrored sculpture both exists in space and images space itself, it seems perpetually on the verge of becoming, a
negotiation of matter. Kapoor was born in Bombay, but moved to London to study art. His earliest works were influenced by Minimalist artists such as Donald Judd and Sol LeWitt as well as performance art and Fluxus. Indeed, his meditation on surface and materiality echoes Judd’s Untitled (Stack), a series of lacquered iron boxes hung on the wall like a ladder. Both artists’ practices challenge medium-specificity, or the belief that each medium has its own distinct characteristics, as championed by critic Clement Greenberg. While undertaking a postgraduate degree at Chelsea School of Art, he became fascinated by Marcel Duchamp, particularly his Etant donnés, 1944-1966, which was a study in voyeurism. Kapoor himself is invested in the viewer and how looking at art affects
an object’s reception: ‘It is very hard to say that one makes art for anybody else, but I do make most works with the viewer in mind, because I have come to feel over the years that art doesn’t just exist in a non-space. It exists in quite a particular formal relation to the world, whatever its context. And in order for it to have meaning, the viewer has to be implicated in the act of looking.’ (A. Kapoor quoted in conversation with Donna De Salvo, D. Anfam, Anish Kapoor, London: Phaidon, 2009, p. 406). Displayed like a painting, Untitled is instead more similar to sculpture, characteristic of much of Kapoor’s work. Looking requires a bodily engagement; it is not possible to look passively and, consequently, the viewer performs within the work itself. That Untitled is so hypnotic owes much to its curved surface, as the mirrored façade simultaneously evokes interiority and exteriority. The uneven edge seems infinitely reproducible, an outward reach towards the external world, while its organic, honeycomb shape remains firmly grounded in the terrestrial. However, Untitled’s distortion also produces an almost miraculous disintegration of form, which ultimately calls for a reckoning with the self. Accordingly, Untitled creates the conditions for contemplation and then subverts them. Mirrors may present a unity of surface but they also serve as portals to other worlds, new celestial spheres, both capacious and introspective. Yet, Kapoor’s beguiling Untitled suggests that such enchantment could be found here on Earth as well.
‘I believe in aesthetic awe. A king of wonder. I think what it does to the object is very interesting. And what it does to one’s perspective as the viewer is fascinating.’ – Anish Kapoor
In Anish Kapoor’s Untitled, tessellated hexagonal tiles have been fused together to form a mosaic of mirror. Executed in 2011, Untitled is one in Kapoor’s series of fragmented concave mirrors each of which takes on and embodies the properties of its surrounding environs. Luminescent in stainless steel, the work appears to vibrate as it reflects the greater world. This unstable and unfixed surface
is the essence of Untitled’s magnetism and fundamental to Kapoor’s practice overall: ‘It’s become a central content in the work, this idea of the non-object, the uncertain object, the object that is, if you like posing a philosophical problem’ (A. Kapoor quoted in conversation with Julia Peyton-Jones and Hans Ulrich Obrist, Anish Kapoor: Turning the World Upside Down, ex. cat. London: D.A.P, 2011, p. 59). As his mirrored sculpture both exists in space and images space itself, it seems perpetually on the verge of becoming, a
negotiation of matter. Kapoor was born in Bombay, but moved to London to study art. His earliest works were influenced by Minimalist artists such as Donald Judd and Sol LeWitt as well as performance art and Fluxus. Indeed, his meditation on surface and materiality echoes Judd’s Untitled (Stack), a series of lacquered iron boxes hung on the wall like a ladder. Both artists’ practices challenge medium-specificity, or the belief that each medium has its own distinct characteristics, as championed by critic Clement Greenberg. While undertaking a postgraduate degree at Chelsea School of Art, he became fascinated by Marcel Duchamp, particularly his Etant donnés, 1944-1966, which was a study in voyeurism. Kapoor himself is invested in the viewer and how looking at art affects
an object’s reception: ‘It is very hard to say that one makes art for anybody else, but I do make most works with the viewer in mind, because I have come to feel over the years that art doesn’t just exist in a non-space. It exists in quite a particular formal relation to the world, whatever its context. And in order for it to have meaning, the viewer has to be implicated in the act of looking.’ (A. Kapoor quoted in conversation with Donna De Salvo, D. Anfam, Anish Kapoor, London: Phaidon, 2009, p. 406). Displayed like a painting, Untitled is instead more similar to sculpture, characteristic of much of Kapoor’s work. Looking requires a bodily engagement; it is not possible to look passively and, consequently, the viewer performs within the work itself. That Untitled is so hypnotic owes much to its curved surface, as the mirrored façade simultaneously evokes interiority and exteriority. The uneven edge seems infinitely reproducible, an outward reach towards the external world, while its organic, honeycomb shape remains firmly grounded in the terrestrial. However, Untitled’s distortion also produces an almost miraculous disintegration of form, which ultimately calls for a reckoning with the self. Accordingly, Untitled creates the conditions for contemplation and then subverts them. Mirrors may present a unity of surface but they also serve as portals to other worlds, new celestial spheres, both capacious and introspective. Yet, Kapoor’s beguiling Untitled suggests that such enchantment could be found here on Earth as well.