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KAPOOR
IN A NUTSHELL
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Anish Kapoor is renowned
for his mystical sculptural forms that fuse physical and psychological
space
Born in 1954 in Bombay, India, he was educated
at Chelsea School of Art and has lived and worked in London
since the early 1970s
Kapoor's work has been exhibited worldwide
and is held in many private and public collections, including
the Tate Collection, the Museum of Modern Art in New York
and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam
Throughout his work, Kapoor has confirmed that
his aim is to make objects and installations that look as
if imported "from another world"
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The vastness of
Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall, on Bankside, is impressive in
itself - so a sculpture that fills it is sure to pull in the crowds.
But if your mind boggles as to what this enormous and overwhelming
150-metre sculpture could be about, its creator Anish Kapoor
is not giving too much away.
Speaking to BBC London, the Turner Prize winner said:
"I’m not going to tell you what it’s saying because I think one
needs to come and experience it...I will tell you the work is called
Marsyas."
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Anish
Kapoor
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He went on: "This
work, in a sense, is made of this
deep red, blood-like membrane, recalling the body
in a very emphatic way."
Mythology
The title of the sculpture, which goes on display this week, refers
to Marsyas, the satyr in Greek mythology who was flayed
alive by the god Apollo.
And the sculpture’s appearance brings a humanising sense to the
industrial feel of Tate Modern - a former power station.
The term vast does very little to prepare you for the sheer
scale of the piece, which is made of specially created red plastic
fabric connected to three steel rings.
It is impossible to see the entire sculpture from a single position
and it has taken 40 people around six weeks to build Marsyas,
which Kapoor has been planning for nine months.
Scale
He explained: "Anything of this scale requires a lot of very
complicated engineering. Inevitably when you are creating
a project of this scale, there are two or three factors that play
a role."
"The first one’s money, the second one is time
and the third one is feasibility."
The complexity means adjustments were being made right up until
the last minute.
And it seems all the effort has been worth it as members of the
press at the first viewing deemed it "thrilling" and "dramatic".
But Kapoor remains pensive about the effect of his latest work,
which now stands in what is possibly the ultimate space in
which to show art.
He said: "I hope there are more ‘ultimates’ to come but the Turbine
Hall, of course, is a great challenge and to take it on is to stick
one’s neck out - I hope I don’t get it cut off!"
Anish
Kapoor's Marsyas is on display at Tate Modern until April 6 2003.
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