Notes on Kapoor´s fantasies - Laurent Muller visits AK at the RA, London

He is internationally acclaimed, winner of the 1991 Turner Prize and a leading sculptor of our time. The Royal Academy of Arts is presenting one of his most subtly extravagant and poetic show. Glad I´m in London to see a part of you!

If nowadays video and images travel for us,  we’re still missing the in-situ experience. So this time, no pics from me, just words instead,  ones I heard during my visit, the ones felt deep down… it’s also that art, a moment of delight and proximity!

Watching ‘Svayambh’ (‘self-generated’ in Sanskrit) on a bench of one of the halls…
‘What is it made of?’
‘It’s wax I heard’
‘Oh it’s cheaper that way’
‘I hope he pays to have a cleanup after’
‘Mind you if you buy one if his works it costs millions so…’
‘Oh my, it’s so long!’
‘It’s on tracks’
‘He says the whole thing weigh 3 tons’
‘3, oh my god!’
‘And the wax on the arches was put by his technicians’
‘Oh I thought it was on the floor because it was pushed through the breach’
‘I think I prefer the funhouse mirror room’
‘Oh I love the mirrors’
‘It’s like a Xmas tree all that!’
‘And you see it’s moving all the time’
‘I don’t know how long more I can watch this. I want to go home and watch the news’
‘It’s from 6 to 6.30 on BBC1’
‘I am going to write down that, our concierge is off at the moment’

Staring at ‘Non-objects’
What do I like the most here, when I stay distant my non-reflection in the steel yoyo, the fact that my aging body is transformed into rays of blues and pinks, or is it the smell of this young man next too me…
‘It works at any time’
‘Yeah but it’s a bit disturbing no?’
‘Why am I upside down?’
‘It’s crazy!’

Going around ‘Slug’
I caress the curve of your back, there where it’s becoming a valley, where lies my pleasure. I observe the rose petal, purple-crimson alive and breathing so slowly, so deep. It’s rare to see that and I find the same music on a square foot of ‘Slug’, this giant resin monster, there only where the shinny sparkling paint covers the upmost desired curve. There resides the glory of ‘Slug’. Look for it, and indulge!


About ‘Shooting into the Corner’
‘Bang!’ and confusion…no comment from me.

About ‘Greyman cries, Shaman dies, Billowing smoke. Beauty evokes’
Towers of excrement, architectures of a lost age, mounts of cement, mixes of greys, creams blacks and red ochre… Kapoor has done it! A room filed with our own ego, fragility and simple condition. Origins!


About ‘Hive’
‘But it’s enormous, how did they get that in!!!’

Anish Kapoor is at the Royal Academy, London until December 11
http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibitions/anish-kapoor/about/