Reflective Log: Book; Anish Kapoor Hayward Gallery and Further Exhibition Designs

Homi K. Bhabha, and Pier Luigi Tazzi, Anish Kapoor, (University of California Press; 1st edition, 1998).

Key Points & Reflections:

• "It may be the most valuable insight into Anish Kapoor's work to suggest that the presence of an object can render a space more empty than mere vacancy could ever envisage" p12. 
• "The monumental and noumenal address of Kapoor's work should not obscure these uncanny experiences which suggest that his vast tolerance of empty space expands the space available into another ongoing disruption of 'time'." p.12. 
• This theme of space within Kapoor's work is consistent and it's something that also drives my own work.

Anish Kapoor, Double Mirror, Stainless Steel, 1998

• "What interests me is that from certain angles and positions there's no image at all in either mirror. I'm very interested in the way they that they seem to reverse, affirm and then negate... To place the viewer with these blinding mirrors in this narrow passage ... this transitional space... somehow at an oblique angle to the mirrors' 'visuality' or the viewers visibility is to be caught in the contest of mirrors. " p.14
• This quote is from Kapoor, speaking about his 'Double Mirror' works, such as Double Mirror 1998 above, which is two stainless steel convex pieces of metal facing each other on opposite walls. This piece is really entirely about the viewing aspect and focuses on the viewer, as perhaps this trapped entity in between time and space. I like this idea of the viewer being caught in the middle of a conversation between two pieces of art. 

• "Kapoor stays with the state of transitionally, allowing it the time and space to develop its own affects - anxiety, unease, restlessness - so that viewing becomes part of the process of questioning the underlying conditions through which the work becomes a visual experience in the first place: how can the conceptual void be made visible? how can the perceptual void be spoken?" p.16. 
• Viewing becomes part of the process of the artwork. This is something to take on into my own work, and seeing how the viewer sees the work. As reflections are a main focus for my work, I think what is reflected is also becoming a lot more important too. 

• Anish Kapoor talks about how works of art can be 'truly made,"the idea of the truly made does not only have to do with truth. It has to do with the meeting of material and non-material... . "A thing exists in the world because it has a mythological, psychological, and philosophical coherence. That is when a thing is truly made... p.18. 

• "The reason I seem to return to the same material possibilities is, I think, because the polished surface is in fact not different from the pigment. In the end it has to do with issues that lie below the material, with the fact that materials are there to make something else possible; that is what interests me. ... The material changes..." . p.18. 
• This is also a point that I agree with in terms of my own practice. I have an involvement with the material and believe that a polished surface or sculpture in general has many similarities to the process of painting. 

• Heidegger's parable of the jug - the potter moulds the jug and turns a void into a material: "'From start to finish the potter takes hold of the impalpable void and brings it forth as the container in the shape of a containing vessel... . The vessel's thingness does not lie at all in the material of which it consists, but in the void that it holds.'"p.19. 

• "It is, once more, the movement of the material in and through the non-material, the ghost in and out of the stone, that gives the work its character..." p.23. 
• This quote reiterates the themes of material and movement that are themes in Kapoor's work but also my own. 

• Kapoor talks about the void in his work, using his piece Untitled 1997 as an example, which is a stainless steel box that creates an illusion of space in its reflection. "For the mirror's magic reduces both the depth and the weight of the world into a skin that floats on the surface of the steel, emphasising the nothingness of the object itself. It is no longer the cavernous 'inside' of the piece that signifies the void; the creation of emptiness is now, like the mirror itself, everywhere and nowhere, as interiority and exteriority fail to preserve their determining dimensions." p25. 
• This quote is really interesting to see the contrast between the mirror and the void, and this juxtaposition is something that I can take into my own work now, by removing parts of the surface via cutting. 

• The book then goes onto reference Jackson Pollock in terms of process - "There's an extraordinary way in which the drip paintings are in the process of making themselves as you look into them."p.30. 
• This quote makes concrete the connection of process and art, process and the viewer's interaction is a thing that is fluid throughout all art forms whether that be sculpture or painting, and I think sculpture and painting are closely intertwined.

Overall Reflections:

• Anish Kapoor sums up how I feel about being an artist at this moment in time: "I think it's my role as an artist to bring expression, it's not my role to be expressive. I've got nothing particular to say, I don't have any message to give anyone. But it's my role to bring expression, let's say, to define means that allow phenomenological and other perceptions which one might use, one might work with, and then move towards a poetic existence." - Anish Kapoor, p.11. 

• I like this quote as it's something that I agree with for my practice. I have sort of drifted away from the political approach for my art which was engaged with capitalism, and instead I have adopted a process led, intrinsic approach to material for my art. I believe art is there for others to view and interpret as they wish rather than putting any beliefs or views on anyone else, therefore, I am no longer interested in a clear political approach. 

• The idea of the 'truly-made' could be a point for my own research. "If they [art objects] are truly made, in the sense of possessing themselves, then they are beautiful." p.18.  

• Other reflections I have had while reading this text include the placement of my own work for exhibition, whether to place it hanging on a wall, perhaps display pieces facing one another like in Kapoor's Double Mirror works.  

• My work will also involve the viewer's own reflection more, or their viewing experience more.

• A final reflection is the engagement and involvement I have committed to the metal material, and similarities this shares with Anish Kapoor's own work and beliefs.  

Further Designs after research: