Anish Kapoor. Untrue Unreal at Palazzo Strozzi: exploring the dimension of the impossible
Anish Kapoor. Untrue Unreal, a new major solo show of the work of the internationally acclaimed Anglo-Indian artist launches this weekend at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence. Winner of the 1991 Turner Prize, Kapoor is one of the most influential artist of our time, influencing and pioneering new notions in the practice of sculpture, The exhibition features a wide range of early, mid-career and recent works including a selected group of pigment sculptures, enthralling mirror-polished stainless-steel sculptures as well as mixed-media and wax installations. The exhibition includes highlights such as the monumental work Svayambh, the title of which comes from a Sanskrit word meaning ‘self-generated’. Emblematic of Kapoor’s interest in works of sculpture that actively participate in their own creation, Svayambh is composed of a vast block of blood red wax that moves slowly along its track across the entire breadth of the opening room of the show through to the adjacent space. The void of the doorway and the transforming material create a dialogic contrast as the movement itself shapes and seemingly forces the block through the restrictive frames making it leave behind traces of paint and wax.
To Reflect an Intimate Part of the Red (1981), a crucial work from the artist’s early career, features a suggestive combination of four red pigment forms and a single yellow object emerging from the floor. Although the smaller scale differentiate these works from later ones, the spatial and architectural effect are similar as their shapes are based on the principles of geometry, specifically concave and convex forms, creating a unique visual effect of depth and intimacy. The artist’s choice of geometric shapes produces a powerful visual experience, stimulating viewers’ curiosity and personal reflections. The role of colour, is also fundamental in the artist’s poetic: primary pigments are not just referring to shade and materiality though they reflect a more spiritual and intimate presence.
At the hearth of the exhibition path sit two rooms showcasing some of Kapoor’s most ground-breaking works, which challenge not only the very idea of physical and tangible object but question the notion of being itself. Non-Object Black (2015), a black form that dissipates as the visitor’s gaze moves around it, is characterised by the use of Vantablack, an innovative material capable of absorbing 99.9% of visible light, making the third dimension of the object dissolve in front of your eyes.
Kapoor’s investigation into the non-object concept is pursued through Gathering Clouds (2014), a set of black concave monochrome that absorb the surrounding space and dissolve into their saturated blackness, distorting our perception and even invalidating the capability of capturing the three-dimensional reality of the work.
The final room of the show features Angel (1990), an ensemble of slate chunks covered with a thick layer of intense Prussian blue pigment. The heaviness of the stone is manipulated and transformed into something extremely light and pure as if their opposite massive and otherworldly property could coexist and fuse together. Along with duality, opposition and fusion – earth/sky, form/shapelessness, void/fullness – another recurring theme in Kapoor’s research is his attention to organic elements such as blood, flesh and body. A Blackish Fluid Excavation (2018), a large dramatic sculpture in steel and resin, as well as the silicone and paint works that intertwine softness with solidity and linearity evoke the artist’s “phase of blood” characterised by the predominance of red, the colour that express both life and death. In his presentation to the press Anish Kapoor commented: “Void is not empty but full of darkness. The black material that I’ve been using is part of the universe. If you apply this material to a fold depicted in a painting, that makes the fold invisible and takes the object beyond being. Reflecting on Malevich’s black square, that in his vision represented a four-dimension object – three dimensions we know plus the one we don’t – my aim is to take the object beyond being, that is to create an illusion and go from the third dimension to the forth one.”
Anish Kapoor. Untrue Unreal
October 7th 2023 – February 4th 2024
