.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
拍品专文
With its highly-polished surfaces of 24k gold and red lacquer, this commanding wall-mounted sculpture showcases Anish Kapoor’s innovative use of reflective material, brilliant color and illusion to produce a work of psychological and metaphysical complexity. Measuring four feet in diameter, the present sculpture is a gleaming and burnished concave mirrored surface rendered as a sculptural form. The deep red bowl-shaped exterior behind the mirrored surface casts a vibrant glow against the wall and expresses Kapoor’s obsession with red, a color that to Kapoor evokes the elemental substance of life itself. The mirrored interior that constitutes the central element of the sculpture, projects its panoramic image of self and surroundings back onto the viewer who stands before it, confounding the spectator’s image and the environment where the sculpture is placed. The artwork’s aura of mystery attracts and beguiles the viewer’s gaze.
As the viewer gazes at the refraction of their physical being and surroundings manifested upon Kapoor's golden lens, the overall surreal effect encourages a contemplation of the visual assumptions of the inhabited world. Peering into the work, the viewer is confronted by a duality-the tension between a visual certainty taken for granted and a distorted view of the world turned on its head.
Kapoor's works conjure a complicated corporeal relationship with his polished surfaces. Moving in front of the work, the viewer loses grasp of their physical existence; this transfiguration is inherent to the existence of the work. Kapoor explains, “The interesting thing about a polished surface to me is that when it is really perfect enough something happens—it literally ceases to be physical; it levitates…. [The mirrored surfaces] cease to be physical and it is that ceasing to be physical that I'm after” (A. Kapoor, quoted in Anish Kapoor, exh. cat., Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, 2008, p. 53). Such a revelation on behalf of a sculpture is extraordinarily subversive, considering that Kapoor's chosen medium has traditionally been defined by its physicality. Indeed, Kapoor refers to his mirrored sculptures as “non-objects,” suggesting that the true substance and meaning of his works lay not in their materiality, but rather in emanating reflections and colors. The deceptively simplistic minimalistic forms that Kapoor creates reveal hidden dimensions. These revelations transport Kapoor's work to a realm beyond the physical limitations of their sculptural medium. The present work offers a new way of defining space, as the viewer arrives at an experience of the sublime by looking not through, but on the surface of the sculpture.
This work, along with much of Kapoor’s oeuvre, is an exploration into the ways that the optical effects of reflective surfaces like mirrors and colors play with our perceptions, reflecting and distorting our environment and even our image of ourselves, disorienting us, altering our perception of ourselves and the world around us. “Borrowing ideas from Minimalist and post-Minimalist predecessors like Donald Judd, Bruce Nauman and Eva Hesse but using deep matte colors, reflectiveness and other illusions, he makes boundaries seem to disappear with an effect that is often overtly sensual and spiritual” (R. Kennedy, “A Most Public Artist Polishes a New York Image,” New York Times, August 20, 2006).
Circle-shaped mirrored artworks such as the present example are part of a larger body of mirrors that have been widely exhibited and are instantly recognizable, including both indoor pieces and larger public sculptures that Kapoor has also created, such as Sky Mirror, a monumental public sculpture installed in 2006 at Rockefeller Center in New York City.
Kapoor’s mirrored sculptures confront the viewer with both an embrace and a challenge: more than simply reflecting the viewer’s self-image and surroundings, they seem to pull us and our surroundings into their extraordinary alternate universe, suggesting that our own world is merely an illusion surrounding us. Beyond the philosophical, Kapoor would like his work to have a physical impact on the viewer, and he sees this as the work’s great power, “I’m interested in that moment of immediate recognition. An object lives in a space in a particular way. You walk into the space and you say yes that’s it. …The theoretical stuff comes later. …I’m much more interested in the effect that the body has, or that the body receives if you like, from a work” (A. Kapoor, quoted in K. Stiles and P. Selz, Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of Artists’ Writings, Berkeley, 2012, p. 189).
As the viewer gazes at the refraction of their physical being and surroundings manifested upon Kapoor's golden lens, the overall surreal effect encourages a contemplation of the visual assumptions of the inhabited world. Peering into the work, the viewer is confronted by a duality-the tension between a visual certainty taken for granted and a distorted view of the world turned on its head.
Kapoor's works conjure a complicated corporeal relationship with his polished surfaces. Moving in front of the work, the viewer loses grasp of their physical existence; this transfiguration is inherent to the existence of the work. Kapoor explains, “The interesting thing about a polished surface to me is that when it is really perfect enough something happens—it literally ceases to be physical; it levitates…. [The mirrored surfaces] cease to be physical and it is that ceasing to be physical that I'm after” (A. Kapoor, quoted in Anish Kapoor, exh. cat., Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, 2008, p. 53). Such a revelation on behalf of a sculpture is extraordinarily subversive, considering that Kapoor's chosen medium has traditionally been defined by its physicality. Indeed, Kapoor refers to his mirrored sculptures as “non-objects,” suggesting that the true substance and meaning of his works lay not in their materiality, but rather in emanating reflections and colors. The deceptively simplistic minimalistic forms that Kapoor creates reveal hidden dimensions. These revelations transport Kapoor's work to a realm beyond the physical limitations of their sculptural medium. The present work offers a new way of defining space, as the viewer arrives at an experience of the sublime by looking not through, but on the surface of the sculpture.
This work, along with much of Kapoor’s oeuvre, is an exploration into the ways that the optical effects of reflective surfaces like mirrors and colors play with our perceptions, reflecting and distorting our environment and even our image of ourselves, disorienting us, altering our perception of ourselves and the world around us. “Borrowing ideas from Minimalist and post-Minimalist predecessors like Donald Judd, Bruce Nauman and Eva Hesse but using deep matte colors, reflectiveness and other illusions, he makes boundaries seem to disappear with an effect that is often overtly sensual and spiritual” (R. Kennedy, “A Most Public Artist Polishes a New York Image,” New York Times, August 20, 2006).
Circle-shaped mirrored artworks such as the present example are part of a larger body of mirrors that have been widely exhibited and are instantly recognizable, including both indoor pieces and larger public sculptures that Kapoor has also created, such as Sky Mirror, a monumental public sculpture installed in 2006 at Rockefeller Center in New York City.
Kapoor’s mirrored sculptures confront the viewer with both an embrace and a challenge: more than simply reflecting the viewer’s self-image and surroundings, they seem to pull us and our surroundings into their extraordinary alternate universe, suggesting that our own world is merely an illusion surrounding us. Beyond the philosophical, Kapoor would like his work to have a physical impact on the viewer, and he sees this as the work’s great power, “I’m interested in that moment of immediate recognition. An object lives in a space in a particular way. You walk into the space and you say yes that’s it. …The theoretical stuff comes later. …I’m much more interested in the effect that the body has, or that the body receives if you like, from a work” (A. Kapoor, quoted in K. Stiles and P. Selz, Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of Artists’ Writings, Berkeley, 2012, p. 189).