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拍品專文
Created in 2011, the year the artist was awarded the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government, Anish Kapoor’s Untitled (Apple Red) is a mesmeric exploration of space and light. Spanning nearly one-and-a-half metres in width, it is an enveloping presence whose surface appears to be in a constant state of flux. Reflecting a warped version of its surroundings, the sculpture suggests an alternative reality in which matter heaves and evanesces. This fluctuating relationship between object and space is one that has long appealed to Kapoor. Discussing his mirrored works, he noted that 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 … What happens with concave surfaces is, in my view, completely beguiling. They cease to be physical, and it is that ceasing to be physical that I'm after’ (A. Kapoor, quoted in Anish Kapoor: Past, Present, Future, exh. cat. Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston 2008, p. 53). By playing with negative space in Untitled (Apple Red), Kapoor creates a receding interiority which paradoxically embraces the external world.
Fascinated by colour in its purest form, Kapoor began to investigate chromatic possibility early on in his career. For the artist, red is particularly evocative; as he has said, ‘Red is the colour of the earth, it’s not a colour of deep space; it’s obviously the colour of blood and body. I have a feeling that the darkness it reveals is a much deeper and darker darkness than that of blue or black’ (A. Kapoor, quoted in S. Paul, Chromophilia: The Story of Art, London, 2017, reproduced at https://www.phaidon.com/agenda/art/articles/2017/february/08/what-is-it-with-anish-kapoor-and-red/). In the present work, the Apple Red of the title refers to the paint colour that Kapoor applied. While other sculptures may use the same shade, the final appearance is unique to each work, owing to the way the paint has been built up. This intense experience of colour recalls the Abstract Expressionists’ search for a chromatic spirituality, informed by the Romantics idea of the ‘sublime’. ‘If one is looking at a Friedrich painting of a figure looking at the sunset,’ he explained, ‘then one is having one’s reverie in terms of their experience. It is my wish to make that distance shorter so that the reverie is direct. You’re not watching someone else do it; you’re compelled to do it yourself’ (A. Kapoor interviewed by M. Gayford, Modern Painters, Spring 2000, n.p.). Yet where the Abstract Expressionists pursued the sublime in two-dimensional canvases, Kapoor reaches for new dimensions, seeking a corporeal experience that transcends planetary laws. In Untitled (Apple Red), he summons new worlds.
Fascinated by colour in its purest form, Kapoor began to investigate chromatic possibility early on in his career. For the artist, red is particularly evocative; as he has said, ‘Red is the colour of the earth, it’s not a colour of deep space; it’s obviously the colour of blood and body. I have a feeling that the darkness it reveals is a much deeper and darker darkness than that of blue or black’ (A. Kapoor, quoted in S. Paul, Chromophilia: The Story of Art, London, 2017, reproduced at https://www.phaidon.com/agenda/art/articles/2017/february/08/what-is-it-with-anish-kapoor-and-red/). In the present work, the Apple Red of the title refers to the paint colour that Kapoor applied. While other sculptures may use the same shade, the final appearance is unique to each work, owing to the way the paint has been built up. This intense experience of colour recalls the Abstract Expressionists’ search for a chromatic spirituality, informed by the Romantics idea of the ‘sublime’. ‘If one is looking at a Friedrich painting of a figure looking at the sunset,’ he explained, ‘then one is having one’s reverie in terms of their experience. It is my wish to make that distance shorter so that the reverie is direct. You’re not watching someone else do it; you’re compelled to do it yourself’ (A. Kapoor interviewed by M. Gayford, Modern Painters, Spring 2000, n.p.). Yet where the Abstract Expressionists pursued the sublime in two-dimensional canvases, Kapoor reaches for new dimensions, seeking a corporeal experience that transcends planetary laws. In Untitled (Apple Red), he summons new worlds.