The new Anish Kapoor work, “Descension”, showed at Kochi-Muziris Biennial, India’s first contemporary arts biennial; is a whirlpool running towards underneath the exhibition hall. The blackness of water inside the whirlpool surrounded by a cage, enhances the impact of the work. The work installed in the middle of the exhibition gives one the feeling of being on a long journey to the center of the earth; accomplishing to impress the viewer even just by photographs.
The “sculptor of the void”, Anish Kapoor, is known for the dark colors he uses. The artist talks about this in one of his interviews, saying; “Most of my work involves darkness rather than light. Light is cultured and educated, while darkness is uncultured and uneducated and deeply within our unspoken story. From Dante to Freud, to the devil, we live, if you like, an internal darkness. I’ve made works over the years that deal with that internal darkness. The whole of Western philosophy is based on the idea that Platon sat in the cave metaphorically, looked up to the light and said, ‘Let there be progress’. Freud looked at the back of the cave and maybe we’re still looking at the back of the cave. I have made lots of work with black and blue. Particularly blue. Because blue is a color that much more deeply reveals darkness than does black. Over the last so many years, almost everything I have made is red. Red is a color of the earth. It’s not a color of deep space. It’s obviously the color of blood and body. I have a feeling that the darkness that it reveals is a much deeper and darker darkness than that of blue and black”.
Kapoor had attracted great interest with his gigantic marble and granite sculptures in his exhibition organized at Sakıp Sabancı Museum last year. The striking materials and colors he used in his exhibited works used to leave a feeling of deep void on the viewer. The deep void we frequently encounter in Kapoor’s works, this time transforms into a whirlpool at Kochi-Muziris.
The Kochi-Muziris Biennial featuring 94 artists including Kapoor, from 30 different countries, may be visited until March 29.
