Finding Everything in the Space of Emptiness

Like a pair of enormous contact lenses, two giant concave stainless steel disks stare at each other across a vacant hallway. At 200 cm, they are taller than a man. Modest industrial lights illuminate the vast chamber where they are attached to the blank concrete ceiling. No shadows offer definition to this space. Instead blank white walls descend to the immaculate concrete floor. The state is reminiscent of a snowstorm and the white out conditions after which this exhibition is named. We have all seen the effect of placing two mirrors opposite to one another. An endless repetition of images is cast one inside the other into the eternity of either surface. However, by simply curving the surface of the mirrors, such as Anish Kapoor has in his installation, Double Mirror (Fig 1: http://www.studio-international.co.uk/studio-images/kapoor/3b.asp), something even more incredible and unexpected occurs upon the polished surfaces: an apparent lack of reflection. Waves of the visual spectrum are bounced off each surface both away from the opposite mirror, away from the eye of the viewer. Stand inside the double mirror. Step into the tension between them. Look up, down, left, right into the broad mirrors and be met with nothing at all!

Anish Kapoor is the artist of space. He is the creator of the void. His work is definitely post-modern. It retains distinct elements of minimalism while employing them under almost satirical or defiant circumstances. Almost no material has escaped his grasp, including but not limited to raw pigment, chalk, earth, polystyrene, fiberglass, stone, gourds, concrete, aluminum, stainless steel, bronze, felt, acrylic, polyvinyl chloride, Vaseline, and wax.

Anish Kapoor is a note-taker. His notes are found as often upon the walls of his workspaces as they are upon the pages of a sketchbook. Spontaneous chicken scratches accompanying his drawings are perhaps the most inspiring and clarifying revelations upon his own work. Distinctively sophisticated and abstract, Kapoor’s thoughts, little and big, fleeting and weighty, are found in the quickly scrawled hand of a man whose writing is half cursive, half printed:

“I have always been interested as an artist in how one can somehow look again for that very moment of creativity where everything is possible and nothing has actually happened” (Kapoor qtd. in Bhabha 35). This sentence is of the greatest value in understanding Anish Kapoor’s vision of space in his art. Who has not seen this nothing space of which he speaks? Who has not, in a fleeting glance, observed the vanishing moment in which a space is defined by a void; who has not seen the possibility enabled by it? Kapoor goes on to say, “It’s a space of becoming . . . ‘something’ that dwells in the presence of the work . . . that allows it or forces it not to be what it states it is in the first instance” (qtd. in Bhabha 35).

Kapoor’s explanations are clear and non-mysterious. The artist repeatedly explains that he seeks to enable expression rather than to express any message of his own. He is the artist who resists the dogmatic, romantic mold of hyper-personally relevant art—school that more often than not yields relevance that is nebulas at best. He simultaneously chooses to forgo the quippy transience and precarious nature of pop art and minimalism. As Nicholas Baume observed “(Anish Kapoor) has produced abstract art at the most sophisticated level of invention that so unabashedly aspires to the mythic; that invites speculation about origin and finality, the corporeal and the infinite” (35). It is his ability to create such sophisticated, yet intimate works that allows his works to command the highest prices of any living artist.

The Symbol of Space

Kapoor speaks endlessly of a void felt strongly in the spaces enveloping his installations and sculptures. As Vidler pointed out in his essay, Reflections on Whiteout, “primitive architecture can be defined as something organized around emptiness . . . .”(16). What defines this entity, this emptiness, the void? What prompts the artist to contextualize it as the object of obsession in his work? The void originates from space, but what makes it a separate entity? The artist bases his answer on the concept that without the intersection of a material, space is simply that: space. Without anything to define its boundaries or suggest that the space holds volume, it is endless. It is filling. However, add a material to it and the space is transformed. This concept is rooted in the Buddhist theory that “Emptiness is alternatively understood through the concept of dependent-origination. It is because things arise because of other things that they exist” (Rowinski). Kapoor often spoke of a “symbol of space” (Bhabha, 19). To help us to better understand what the artist meant by this term, let us consider Martin Heidegger’s revealing description of a potter and his clay jug as found in Poetry, Language, Thought:

Sides and bottom, of which the jug consists and by which it stands, are not really what does the holding. But if the holding is done by the jug’s void, then the potter who forms sides and bottom on his wheel does not, strictly speaking, make the jug. He only shapes the clay. . . . 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 holds (Heidegger 169).

In essence, the area inside the jug is the “symbol of the void” and exists only due to the nature of the object. Buddhism labeled this idea of emptiness “Sunyata.” Without the material object cutting through it, this void is simply a continuation of empty space, not a void. Space is naturally full. However, a void by definition is empty and begs to be filled. Rowinski observed, “In physics, there are highly developed mathematical theories which suggest the empty space of a vacuum actually contains an infinite amount of energy.” It is the viewer’s mind, in its infinite ability towards sophistication and abstraction, whose purpose it is to fill the voids created by the works of Anish Kapoor. As such, our minds hold the final piece to their completion.

Windows

Millennium Park, Chicago, Illinois, dusk at Cloud Gate (Fig. 2: http://www.hamilton.cps.k12.il.us/Cloud-Gate.jpg ): thousands of street lights stretch and twinkle across the gleaming surface of Kapoor’s hulking yet graceful 2004 public installation. Thousands more beam from the tiny windows of dozens of nearby skyscrapers; these twinkling forms falter, die and rise by the minute as they curl down the sides of the mammoth ellipse in the falling darkness. The surface is polished, seamless, like a piece of expensive jewelry. Weighing 110 tons, the form looks strangely light and far from awkward. So mammoth in size and so curved is the form that from certain vantage points, it feels completely undefined. As Mary Jane Jacob observes in her essay, Being With Cloud Gate:

At the heart of origin and height of potentiality lies infinite possibility. . . . Not fixing us on a point of perception we have had before means great possibility, the chance to see anew as I we are seeing for the first time, the way to see beyond and deeper as if we had the wisdom of the ages. Indeed we do, within intuition. Buddhism calls this empty space (131).

Mary Jane Jacobs observed the availability of Sunyata in Cloud Gate. Again, the possibility exists as a product of the void, the void as a product of the object. Naturally, it is the object that defines space and the space itself as separate and fulfilled an entity as the object itself.

Like the Leshan Giant Buddha (Fig. 3: http://pureinsight.org/pi/files/Buddha_statues.jpg ) carved out of a cliff in southern China during the Tang Dynasty, Cloud Gate seems to have existed before the city or at least shared the same birth. This is an inherent effect of Kapoor’s installations. They have a way of manipulating their sites into places. In Chicago, the sky’s incredible evening brilliance is brought closer as it spreads downward in a blue-violet sheet. Orange and pink clouds seep across, stretch, shrink, rise, and fall almost close enough to touch. Watch the people! Some walk briskly past cloud gate on their way back to work, to eat, to meet people, to live. Some glance only momentarily at the installation. Others are drawn towards it, briefcases in hand, wide eyed, and a giddy youthful step. Like children, grown men and women in suits and skirts peer upwards to see their own faces moving among the tessellation of light and darkness. Their faces caught inside the dynamic flux of the constantly changing surface look warm as if every intuition they had felt and doubted had in this moment unveiled itself and cast off doubt in one motion. This feeling brings their faces close, almost touching the stainless steal surface; palms sweating and hearts lightened. People are experiencing what Kapoor calls “The Sublime.” To him it is so important that the installation is participated in and experienced rather than simply observed (Carlisle 2).

Kapoor is wary to speak of the influence of his birthplace on his art; however, he does not disregard the experiences of his early youth. He sees his birthplace in Bombay as having a subconscious effect on his artistic outlook. Most importantly he explains, “I hope that on a deeper level, my art could leave Indian-ness behind. Ultimately the thing that I believe in is that if we can, through practice, come into the studio every day and face that emptiness. . . astonishing things arrive” (qtd. in Carlisle 2). This understood, Kapoor explains that his works “are manifestations, signs of a state of becoming or a transitional space. Not a fixed or positive identity, but an illusionary space” (qtd. in Jacob 124). This view is shared by most Eastern Religions including Buddhism, Taoism, and the religion of Kapoor’s father, Hinduism. Based on the idea that nothing is static and the smallest subatomic particles are constantly in a state of flux, so as well is the universe constantly alive with dynamism and motion. The passerby is subconsciously invited to consider the special relativity theory as light and time dilate before their eyes. They see the clouds in motion, people in motion, a changing sky. They see space as an entity with far more dimensions than three, not separate from people, but essential to people as they are its most dynamic aspect.

Anish Kapoor sees emptiness as outweighed by the possibilities in its presence. This is essentially a concept of balance, the roots of which are found in Eastern religion as well, being understood through the Hindu trilogy of Shiva, Vishnu, and Brahma. Shiva, the god of death and destruction is paradoxically followed and worshiped more endearingly than any other Hindu god. Vishnu, the god of preservation and sustainability is the second and a more accessible god. Strangely, it is Brahma, the god of life, whose character remains the most mysterious and ominous in the Hindu religion. Why would Shiva, the god of death and the unknown, be the most openly worshipped? Many may suggest fear, or an exchange of sacrifice and false gratitude for mercy; however, this is far from the truth. Rather Shiva’s popularity is supported by the view that in the wake of death alone is its offspring of life possible. Everything extremely good and extremely evil must be destroyed in order for perfect possibility to be born and balance attained (Kavitha). The polar opposite figures of the Hindu religion, Shiva and Brahma, act as two extremes through which balance and sustainability are attained. Their natures play a great role in the artist’s ability to successfully balance his works in an unexpectedly pure manner.

Striking a Balance

As seen in Cloud Gate (Fig. 2: http://www.hamilton.cps.k12.il.us/Cloud-Gate.jpg ), balance is not the product of mediocrity or the lack of excess, as one from the West may expect. Rather it is the result of two extremes juxtaposed on top of each other! It is the combination of nothing versus everything, empty versus full, space versus void, infinite possibility versus complete definition. The counterparts of the extremes, the poles, are necessary to each other. Thus banishing one extreme banishes the possibility of the other. Kapoor’s 2007 installation Ascension (Fig. 4: http://s3.amazonaws.com/vodpod.com.videos.thumbnail/662727.medium160.jpg ) in Sao Paolo, Brazil, portrays with perfect physicality the flux of heightened life after destruction. Here a thick length of smoke snakes upwards from between the wooden floorboards of the passage. This trail is suctioned upward into a pipe and eventually disappears into the black mystery of its heights. Smoke clearly is the result of burning and destruction. It is the companion of fire whose potential towards destruction is nearly untouchable. However, the steady stream is forever rising. Such a motion towards physical height suggests an increased level of understanding and a possibility of the attainment of the sublime. Along with it comes the mystery of its eventual disappearance. Again death, life, mystery, and doubt converge within the space of Anish Kapoor’s work.

The concept of infinite possibility, enabled by non-objective form and balance achieved through extremes, is shared by several other site-specific installation artists of the 21 st Century. Richard Serra began his revolutionary career a few years before Kapoor. Weatherproof steel curved in mammoth ellipses, arcs, curves, and slanted twists constructed in mammoth proportions characterize the nonobjective nature of his mazelike creations. Consider Serra’s 1999 sculpture, Switch (Fig. 5: http://www.arts4all.com/newsletter/issue11/images/webswitch_Vert2_4W.JPG). As Thelma Golden says in her essay, Place Considered:

Photographs can provide only a hint of the scale and physical wonder. . . . Serra’s work indicates how sculpture can commingle with architecture and the historic tradition of monument-making, not only to define space but also to create a place marked by the experience of engaging with the works. (56)

So rough and imbalanced were Serra’s sculptures that he was actually asked to deconstruct them after their completion. For example, in 1989 Serra was asked to disassemble Tilted Arc (Fig. 6: http://images.artnet.com/images_US/magazine/features/kuspit/kuspit7-16-07-5.jpg ) from the Federal Plaza in New York City on the grounds that it disrupted the balance of the surrounding area (Jagvonjeul). Perhaps, Serra saw the disruptive design of the sculpture as a way of finding true balance in a way similar to Kapoor.

Fifty years ago artists such as Henry Moore laid the groundwork for such free form sculptures that embrace space. Moore was one of the first artists to courageously allow the dimension of space manipulate the entirety of his creations. Consider Reclining Figure (1951) (Fig. 7: http://www.henry-moore-fdn.co.uk/images/edingburgh_lh293_3_0.jpg ). Twenty-one inches long, the bronze statuette would be a sparkling speck next to Cloud Gate. When viewed from one side it is vaguely reminiscent of a female figure, but without the title, one would surmise that the uniquely hollow internal and external form is as nonobjective as Kapoor’s ellipses. As Nathan Knobler says of Moore’s statue in his book, The Visual Dialogue:

It is obvious that it is this organization of open and closed form, inner and outer space, which dominates the conception of this work, and not the demands of representation (284).

The holes in the outer shell allow open space and polished metal to interact as the hollow nature of the mass strongly assumes the notion of a void. Moore, like Kapoor, has toyed with the idea of possibility instigated emptiness! Of course size, material, and abstract form versus nonobjective form separate these two works, but step back. Imagine the hollow form of Reclining Figure towering vastly over your head. This is how Moore intended it to be. Squint. Your brain has filled in the spaces! Now, the similarities between this and Cloud Gate are unmistakable. Both are linear masses of polished metal. Both throw time in front of your eyes as light and color reflect and sway across them. Both require the viewer to walk around them, as every vantage point offers something new in the dimensions of time, form, void, and most of all space.

Everything is Possible

Terrifically engaging, transcending in size, materially incredible, the works of Anish Kapoor are our tools. Once interviewed by English BBC Radio host, John Tusam, Kapoor spoke of this nontraditional concept by expressing his belief that his Indian roots may have prompted him in that direction. He has obviously acknowledged the influence of the Minimal art of the 1960s and 1970s, the idea that the object in a sense has a language to itself and that its primary purpose to the world is not interpretive: it is there as if sitting in its own world of meaning.

Kapoor drops all baggage associated with being an artist. As many surrounding artists of his generation make statements based on dissatisfaction with their world, he gives us something much greater: objects and spaces with a nature all of their own; he offers places that naturally sanction their own legitimacy. He comments not upon the suppressions of society but upon the vastness of the human soul. The restrictions of statements become peripheral to the possibility of the sublime. Unmarred by the affliction of transforming an emotional message into a verbally comprehensible one he gives us something with a voice of its own. He gives it in sizes big enough into which persons can throw themselves! Then he steps away. The opportunity to cast momentary glances towards the void remains within our grasp for it is in the spatial void, alone, where nothing has happened that everything is possible!

The concept of a sculpture’s separate existence, though epitomized in Kapoor’s work has a deep and interesting history with breakthroughs running parallel to those that took place in the more apparent world of painting. The state at which Kapoor arrives was brought about through the process of opening the subject up to surrounding space, trusting it with that space, not cutting it off as something to be marveled at but making it capable of interaction. After all, without the capability to change or at least interact, no purpose exists for a work to be separate from its maker. Consider King Mycerinus and Queen Kha-Merer-Nebty (Fig. 8: http://www.rsu.edu/faculty/jford/Mycerinus.jpg). During Egypt’s 4 th dynasty kingdom, this life-sized sculpture was produced by a nameless artist. Observe the static frozen forms. The prison holding them in this state is not the dark solidity of their slate material; rather it is the very space surrounding them: thick, unbroken, complete. The dead eyes of this couple look nowhere. Everything is still. These two are deities as incapable of interaction as they are of motion. They exist in a higher place than the rest of humanity. Because of this they are tied to their maker, an exacting product of his skill, mistrusted with their own being. A similarity can, however, be discovered between this ancient sculpture and Kapoor’s work. Such a connection is based solely upon the physical nature of the pieces. Specifically, the solitude and unity found in Kapoor’s Cloud Gate are quite recognizable in King Mycerinus and Queen Kha-Merer-Nebty as well. This bold singularity and seamless immaculateness of each surface is what ties the two together across thousands of years.

Michelangelo’s David, 1501, (Fig. 9: http://www.econ.ohio-state.edu/jhm/arch/david/David_von_Michelangelo.jpg) is another excellent example of a three-dimensional form, un-endowed with the possibility for interaction. Though stunningly rendered this marble piece is also held captive by four tight invisible walls. Again eyes are caste deftly into an upward space. Expressionless, the deity strikes a pose that is cut off entirely from the dimensions of time and change. Finally, in 1623 Bernini managed to somewhat defy this barrier in another sculpture of David. Bernini’s David (Fig. 10: http://www.artchive.com/artchive/b/bernini/bernini_david.jpg) did so by breaking the traditional vertical plane. David’s body twists and slants as the hero prepares to hurl the weighty discus through the air. The broken planes are enhanced by a richly contrasting interplay of shadow and light upon their surfaces. Such contrast found upon David is the product of light blocked and reflected upon solid form. It is found with equal brilliance upon Kapoor’s steel surfaces, for one quality inherent to reflective surfaces is an apparent increase in the level of contrast between all objects caught in its surface. Such a breaking of planes as was found in Bernini’s David foreshadowed the future freedom from the traditional verticality in three-dimensional works and is extremely prevalent throughout much of Kapoor’s works. The bean shape of Cloud Gate is an example of this new exploration of latitudinal space, along with the blue pigment forms of Dragon (Fig. 39: http://www.artline.ro/admin/_files/photogallery/dragon.jpg), which seem to hover heavily above the exemplified horizontality of the floor’s plane.

Kapoor’s works invariably succeed through provoking the motion of their participants, a quality found in Bernini’s David as well. Viewers are drawn 360 degrees around the form of David through the anticipation of a new though equally unified vantage point. Though not one inch of the sculpture is anything less than precariously representational, it entices the orbit of its viewer in a manner similar to the possibilities opened up by Kapoor’s non-objective designs.

Observe the striking difference between these sculptures and the bronze work of Auguste Rodin, Man With a Broken Nose (Fig. 11: http://lh3.ggpht.com/_3Q7l4_GUfRg/Rsh5Aw6vRuI/AAAAAAAABHA/696CRbV2dPU/P8080254.JPG ). So courageous was this sculpture that the salons rejected it on the grounds that it was too offensive. How human is this man! His hairline is receding and his eyes stare quizzically from beneath his furrowed brow. The nose is obviously disfigured. It is a real feature of a certain individual, with a story, a separate identity. This separateness was a huge hurdle traversed possibly for the first time ever in three-dimensions by Auguste Rodin. It was an artist such as he, who may have helped Anish Kapoor to intuitively trust his works with their separate state. Though the figure does not change, he interacts through expression. His broken nose and receding hairline relay the infliction of some past pain. Such an event clarifies a distinct passage of time rather than the timeless heavenliness of previous sculptures. This reverence or at least recognition of time is apparent in Kapoor’s works as well. Time passes truthfully in their metallic surfaces. It may be observed for as long as a participant desires. Even after they exit the realm of such works, they are aware that even after they have gone, the lapse of time over the metallic surfaces will continue as varied and shifting as ever. Like a creature alive it begs for their return. This individual, Man With a Broken Nose, reaches forward across space with his gaze as do the reflections in Kapoor’s surfaces (Fig. 2: http://www.hamilton.cps.k12.il.us/Cloud-Gate.jpg). From these surfaces, eyes are reflected horizontally, vertically into the reality of their surroundings, not upwards into the blindness of pure mysticism.

The sheer accessibility of Man With a Broken Nose (Fig. 11: http://lh3.ggpht.com/_3Q7l4_GUfRg/Rsh5Aw6vRuI/AAAAAAAABHA/696CRbV2dPU/P8080254.JPG ) holds similar qualities to the mirrored surface. Just as one may gaze into one’s own reflection across Cloud Gate, one may stare into the haunting face of Man With a Broken Nose and see something of oneself and one’s own past caught up behind his piercingly soulful gaze. It is this exchange between sculpture and participant that so strongly links Rodin’s bust with Kapoor’s current work.

In 1886 Auguste Rodin made another break-through that was received with equal abhorrence by the salons of France. This time the blunder was produced in the form of a public installation: The Burghers of Calais (Fig. 12: http://www.sogonow.com/static/FCKeditor/UserFiles/Image/16%20Burghers%20of%20Calais,%20Stanford%20U.jpg ). Again, the people in this work were as real and individual as those who travel to visit them today. In fact, these six bronze figures hold a history and future much more public and less mysterious than Man With a Broken Nose. The subjects of the sculpture were French citizens who had offered their lives to England. The six Burghers asked to pay for the freedom of Calais with their blood. The entire lives of these six people are portrayed upon the streets of Calais. This one moment captured in bronze is indicative of the past, the present, and the future simultaneously. The impending death of the six defines the lapse of their lives. It clarifies that a beginning exists and resists the timelessness of life. Human, capable, interactive, the autonomous figures act separately from their maker. So complete is their solitude that none catches another in his stare. Such independent fields of sight span the space that they cross, electrifying it in every direction as is true across every inch of Cloud Gate (Fig. 2: http://www.hamilton.cps.k12.il.us/Cloud-Gate.jpg). The faces appear haggard, yet resolute, tired, yet beaconing (Fig. 12). How much must be realized in this moment when the healthy body is faced with such a certain and measured death! They peer with the doubtful uncertainty yet peaceful assuredness. This gaze is the same that fills our own eyes as we rest our eyes upon the unrecognizable yet familiar surfaces of Cloud Gate. The Burghers welcome us. They draw us in as wholly and rapturously as Kapoor’s pulsating sculptures. Each angle offers an unexpected face, something new, full of the possibility born through uncertainty alone. Auguste Rodin’s Burghers of Calais lays the foundation upon which great things, great possibilities were striven for, upon which artist’s such as Kapoor were able to create entities separate from themselves in the space of the freedom and mystery.

Drawings

Artists are the inventors, those who forged ahead towards an un-borrowed vision, the inherently selfish, the shamelessly self-sufficient. They are also explorers. They are experimenters. Kapoor, like everyone had to experiment to find the materials and the singular vision that would guide him. His public installations are among the most photographed in the world; however it is less known that his paintings and drawings, primarily works of the 70s and 80s, could fill volumes. These did not cease to be produced when he began designing his three-dimensional work, but they did come first. They mark the beginning of the exploration that has rocketed him to the present height of his career. Early in his life, Kapoor said of his drawings, “What I am trying to do is to make a picture of the interior, the interior of me” (qtd. in Lewison 11). How different this sentence sounds from the words he later used to describe Cloud Gate and Double Mirror (Fig. 1: http://www.studio-international.co.uk/studio-images/kapoor/3b.asp). Here he speaks of observation by his audience rather than participation. He speaks of symbolism and himself rather than possibility and space; however, look closely at his drawings: see that space is extremely prevalent here as well! Kapoor, even before he had found his material of choice or words to describe his purpose, had put down on paper the concepts of space that later bloomed into the most explosive dimension of his work.

Barnett Newman is the name most mentioned by Anish Kapoor when he speaks of his influences. His painting and drawings are what show this influence with the most clarity. For instance consider Newman’s oil on canvas, Pagan Void (Fig. 13: http://gala.univ-perp.fr/~dgirard/Exposes/barnettnewman/barnettnewman02.jpg) next to Kapoor’s Untitled (1989) (Fig. 14: http://www.tate.org.uk/collection/T/T05/T05864_8.jpg ). In both works a larger circle interrupts an almost solid background. The edges of both circles appear alive. They are not clean, but rough and mobile. This accentuates their importance as symbols of space. Newman’s chosen title further clarifies the centrality of the mysterious void in his painting. What’s more, the circles in both Kapoor and Newman’s paintings are highly suggestive of human eggs. They appear to float in the mystery of emptiness, full of potential for embryonic life, for everything, yet filled with nothingness. Lisa Randall begs the question in Warped Passages (1) “What exists that we haven’t yet seen?” Here, in this pull between void and space, life and death, we are reminded not only of the constant flux of the universe but also of the constant opportunity for everything to change in a moment as we move with intention through it. Here, among polar opposites, balance has been achieved in a way prefacing the concepts of Kapoor’s three-dimensional works.

Struggle and confusion were not unknown to Kapoor during this period leading to his discovery of the right material, right place, and right forms. In fact, at the age of 18 Kapoor was persuaded by his parents to study electrical engineering in Israel. He says laughingly that he “hated every minute of it” (qtd. in Burnett 114). At the age of 20 he left Horsney University and went to London. Here at Chelsea School of Art and Design he eagerly pursued the study of art that had evaded him through his teens. Still, the journey felt rough as Kapoor struggled with the vast cultural difference involved with moving to a western country. Most of all, he struggled with materials. He began sculpting geometric objects using heaps of pure pigment. See 1000 Names (Fig. 15: http://bp1.blogger.com/_NKy9P3wZP5g/RbDesW0yTmI/AAAAAAAAAGY/AKQ7EIJEP1w/s1600-h/1000NA~1.JPG ).

These brilliantly colored, mysterious objects raised many questions concerning their solidity and the solidity of their surrounding environment. The way they seeped upwards in mounds from the floor suggests that they were part of something much larger than us; similar to the ideology of ancient Japanese paintings. Installations such as these helped Kapoor to make a small break into the world of popular art. Not until after his graduation did he discover how perfectly the polished surface of steel lent itself to his developing ideas and changing perception of time, space, and art. His choice to use steel actually reaches farther into depths introduced by previous sculptors as it offered Kapoor the most immediate and clear manifestation of the ideals striven for in his two-dimensional work.

Surface, Reflection, Process

Together, painting and sculpture have contemplated and crossed many barriers. They have followed similar movements in almost every possible way. Although paint is a singular medium, the various techniques used in its application to the canvas through history have allowed it several practically separate entities. These techniques parallel the different materials used in sculpture. Consider the painting technique used during the impressionist movement of the late 19 th century. Van Gogh’s Starry Night (Fig. 16: http://www.scu.k12.ca.us/pomeroy/3rd/starry-night.jpg) (1889) with thick impasto brushstrokes and winding representation is one of the most recognizable paintings of all time. Place next to this the wax sculpture of Medardo Rosso: The Concierge (Fig. 17: http://media2.moma.org/collection_images/resized/396/w500h420/CRI_70396.jpg), 1883. A heaped hunk of haphazard wax has been provoked into the form of a man’s head. Both Van Gogh and Cezanne’s works are immediate—instantaneous, fleeting, palpable. Praxis and final product have become one and the same. The thicker course paint of Starry Night appears as malleable and spontaneous as the melted looking waxy surface of The Concierge. In Starry Night as in the work of Cezanne, Monet and many others, the paint though static has thrown motion into the two-dimensional surface. It fills the space between the viewer and the canvas. Most significantly, the manner of its application has allowed the paint to become increasingly separated from its subject! Similarly, the wax of Rosso’s creation has separated itself from the subject as well. Full of process and emotion, both materials have become independent from their subjects in order to attach themselves more strongly to the expression of their creators.

If wax has more of a potential towards separation of material from subject, if it breaks into the dimension of space more successfully than the previously used bronze and marble, why did Kapoor choose to use steel? In actuality, Kapoor’s choice to use polished steel simply took the positive properties of malleable materials a step farther. His viewer became his brush stroke, his bending wax. He made the surface not only separate from the subject, but separate from himself as well. Although pristine and seamless, the polished steel surfaces are as process driven and immediate as Pollock’s drip paintings.

In works such as Full Fathom 5 (Fig. 18: http://larvalsubjects.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/jacksonpollock-full-fathom-five-1947.jpg ) Pollock equated praxis to product as Cezanne and Van Gogh had previously done; except, his praxis was a process. Similarly, the process in Kapoor’s sculptures, however, is never ending! This is because it is not his process, not his story, but the story of the sculpture itself! Like Pollock’s thick drips of paint we ooze across their surfaces. The products of the world drip down like paint. Some process artists have gone so far as to destroy the object of their efforts after their completion. The lives of such people were expectedly self-destructive as well. For them, process was everything. They were the only decisive power in their work. An inability to truly let go of or give separate life to their work led them desperately through abusive lives and unto early deaths. This is where Anish Kapoor is different. This is where he has let go. He has found a way of allowing his sculptures to continue the process of their creation in the most freeing way possible.

Windows, Skin, and Automation

Several concepts serving as building blocks for much of Anish Kapoor’s works include the transcendence of time through surface, the reversal of void and spatial roles, and the ability bestowed upon the work to form itself. These are employed and explored by several other prominent artists in similar and contrasting ways.

The mirrored surface has become a windowpane into another visual realm. Rain drops settle on it alerting us that entrance is impossible. It shows a place, changing by the second, yet recognizable. It certifies what exists beyond the pane while clarifying what is here. We are not there but have seen the map and are on our way. Gazing through these windows, entering a state of becoming, is what separates the living from the alive. This uncomfortable “in between place” is the truest place of balance and progress. Others have gone in directions similar to that chosen by Anish Kapoor in the use of this surface. Among them are Donald Judd, Arnaldo Pomodoro, and Dale Chihuli.

Installation artist, Donald Judd, is well known for his method of alternating “polished planes with pockets of space” (Tuchan 1). Like Kapoor, Judd used polished surfaces of galvanized steel or aluminum. Such surfaces likewise beg for the presence and participation of their viewers in order to gain completion. Try photographing these installations and you will find it impossible not to capture yourself in the picture as a true part of the creation of the steel or its supporting wall. Also, like Kapoor, Judd saw space as an object of possibility and power in his sculptures. However, Judd was truly a minimalist. Untitled (1963) (Fig. 19: http://doanna07.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/4110-donald_judd_untitled_001.jpg) is an excellent example of Judd’s repetitive minimalism. He sought balance through harmony, peace, and repetition. Where Kapoor reached balance through extremes and engagement, Judd manipulated the known and expected into a sense of balance.

Sculptor Arnaldo Pomodoro is the producer of works even closer in physical similarity and concept to Anish Kapoor’s. See Italy’s gift to the United States: Sphere Within A Sphere (Fig. 20: http://www.stefanocarlino.com/Immagini/arnaldo_pomodoro.jpg). Here the United Nations Headquarters is reflected in the huge polished bronze globe. People move busily about it just as they do around Cloud Gate (Fig. 2: http://www.hamilton.cps.k12.il.us/Cloud-Gate.jpg ). However, what is revealed by the orbit is even more unexpected. On one side of the sphere is a gaping wound. The peaceful surface is torn open and the insides revealed in a shockingly violent hole. Here, balance has been obtained through the element of surprise surrounded by the expected. Perfection is found as order balances the existence of chaos.

Chihuly’s Glowing Gemstone Polyvitro Chandelier (Fig. 21: http://www.glassart.net/artists/chihuly/wiki002.jpg ) is shamelessly lavish in its use of reflective spheres and orbs aglow with bubbling neon and argon. Intensely colorful, shamelessly material, these mirrored surfaces dash our world with abstract reflections and unworldly color. Though from a distance we are satisfied with the intensity of the objects, we must move closer to complete them with our gaze. Focus on an object past the semi-transparent surface and find that it has become morphed and alien. These glass bubbles hold striking similarities to Kapoor’s Making the World Many (Fig. 22: http://lh3.ggpht.com/_rXaLmwHAjpc/RzVajzmmZHI/AAAAAAAAAt8/sKX6tSfCtFs/DSCF1660.jpg ) (1997). In this sculpture we observe a proliferation of oozing stainless steel bubbles. Although similar in form and reflective properties, Chihuly (Fig. 21) plays more precariously with the idea of materials enabling a state of immateriality. So seamless and elemental is the surface of Making the World Many that we almost forget its presence. We forget that the material is what produces the reality of our experience. Thus, in Kapoor’s work, the state of transition reached through the material is more important than the surface itself. Chihuly’s chandelier, however, uses materials almost recklessly, leaving little possibility of their being forgotten. Material and immaterial, ornament, and abstraction are plunged together into the presence of this hanging object.

In When I am Pregnant (1992) (Fig. 23: http://gregcookland.com/journal/uploaded_images/picKapoorWhenIamPregnant-709817.jpg) pregnancy is explored as a state of flesh. Pregnancy is fresh with blood and takes place among guts behind skin. Skin stretches and grows to provide room for newness as mass looms behind its pliable surface. Kapoor transfers the physicality of pregnancy and growth into a mental and emotional state of transition. Here, transition has caused the implosion of space, the dissolving of time and eruption of life. When facing straight toward the white wall of this sculpture we see nothing beyond a fuzzed halo glowing around the convex surface of the “pregnant” wall. It is minimal. What you see is exactly what you get. Here is a wall with a flaw. But, walk to the side, even one step. Something has happened. Although made of plaster and doubtlessly static, the wall is growing. Its humanoid skin works as a tool for transporting the mind into what could be. Restless, unsatisfied, subject to death, yet subject to such an incredible state of attainment, the egg-white skin of this wall practically breathes.

Consider Rachel Whiteread’s Closet (Fig. 24) (1988). Here a common-looking paneled wooden closet stands upright at 163 centimeters tall. The piece of furniture holds six shelves, each with a door. From every seam in these drawers seeps white plaster. It oozes from their cracks indicating that the wardrobe is not void, but completely full of a certain white gooey material that is growing from within. As Hayden says in the book, Out of Minimalism: The Referential Cube, “Conceptually, Closet is an inversion of the real closet’s interior and exterior” (123). Here, what was assumed to be empty has been found bursting full. Closets are receptacles awaiting fulfillment; however, rather than being void within, its bloated state has defined the surrounding space as the void. The closet has become Heidegger’s Jug; instead of defining its interior as the void, it has bestowed the void upon its exterior. How similar this is to the inversion we find in Kapoor’s installation When I am Pregnant? Within the void, possibility existed and is portrayed in its physicality in both installations.

Skin again finds structure in Kapoor’s Marsyas (Fig. 25: http://www.0lll.com/architecture-exhibitions/gallery15/marsyas_01.jpg), a 2002 installation at the Tate Modern. Here, a thin fluted, PVC tube is stretched taut between three colossal rings. It gapes wide at all ends like gasping mouths. The mammoth size of these almost floral forms brings to mind O’Keeffe’s enormous flowers. Red Poppy (Fig. 26: http://www.rap.ucar.edu/staff/park/okeeffe_red_poppy.jpg) displays a particular similarity, with its huge bright red petals and dark center. The tube runs between them like a bloodless vein. The participant’s inward gaze is met by the blood and life of the color red as it fades into a dark mysterious space. Kapoor says, “My tendency is to go from color to darkness. Red has a very powerful darkness” (qtd in Baume 31). It begs us to enter its path, to discover the course of becoming. Perhaps things are not what they seem behind this skin.

Similarly, just one year earlier, Ernesto Neto used the strikingly skin-like material of polyamide to create Walking in Venus Blue Cave (Fig. 27). Here, a sheer white membrane forms objects recognizable as internal to the body. Clusters of stretched tubes hang from the ceiling like giant alveoli. The tissues are light and swaying, living, growing. Like Kapoor, Neto plunges us into the space of the unknown. He draws us in by a wonder of what is coming through the exploration of his material life forms.

In 2000 Michael Petry created an installation, Contagion (Fig. 28), also along concepts inferred by changes beneath the skin. At dusk, visitors are drawn down a long corridor. Red flood lights bathe the hall. Fleshy hollow hearts float upwards from the ground; the semi-transparent skins allow visitors to peer through them. As they enter the corridor, visitors are bathed in red light infected by a nameless virus, their own skin altered. Similarly, Kapoor’s Her Blood (Fig. 29: http://www.tate.org.uk/about/tatereport/2004/img/listimg/kapoor_T11763.jpg) (1998) made of stainless steel and lacquer bathes its viewer in blood. Like a wound it gapes from the wall and infects viewers with color while morphing their own bodies and movements.

The red slit wound in Kapoor’s The Healing of St Thomas (Fig. 30: http://www.anishkapoor.com/works/gallery/img/1989thehealing_thb.jpg) beacons through flesh as well, this time a hole in the flesh. Here at eye level, a single red wound of paint stares mercilessly from the otherwise seamless void it has created on a barren wall. Here is another clarification of the symbol of space. Just as a wound makes persons terribly conscious of the rest of their healthy body, the slit in the wall brings to brazen reality the existence of the surrounding void. Just as our eyes crawled wondrously across the wall in When I am Pregnant to verify the state of becoming, just as our legs carried us closer to the wide mouth of Marsyas, we are drawn into motion towards the wound just as Saint Thomas was. After all, perhaps what really separates us from the place we see is doubt.

Another excellent example is Svayambh (2007) (Fig. 34: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2355/1932182949_d0bc1aae63.jpg?v=0). A huge red mass of Vaseline appears to have been carted by tracks through a rectangular hole in a wall. The walls appear to have sliced the Vaseline-like dough by a cookie cutter. Revealingly, the word svayambh is derived from the Sanskrit words, “self-formed and independent originator.” Jasper John’s Device Circle appears to have been formed by some object being mechanically dragged through its paint encrusted surface as well. Made in the 1950s when paintings were destructively personal and completely based on expression, this painting suggested the revolutionary idea that the artist is a researcher, an enabler, but not the only mechanism involved in the creation.

The bubble, captured in Kapoor’s silicone cube of Untitled (Fig. 35), is caught in the moment of its natural formation. Kapoor observed the automatic origins of the bubble. He appreciated its truthful creation and captured it in an observable form of the pocket of air during its stage of natural explosion. This concept is undeniably similar to that which is taking place in the installation When I am Pregnant (Fig. 23, http://gregcookland.com/journal/uploaded_images/picKapoorWhenIamPregnant-709817.jpg). Again, space naturally implodes and spontaneously stretches from the inside out.

In Damien Hirst’s In and Out of Love (Fig. 36: http://www.artchive.com/artchive/h/hirst/hirst_thousand.jpg), a makeshift London Gallery was entranced by the naturally occurring phenomenon of birthing butterflies. Hundreds of germinating cocoons were attached to blank canvases drawing spectators from wall to wall about the room. Boxes of lavish free-growing foliage were attached to the walls below these canvases. From them radiators sprang heat to create a greenhouse-like atmosphere. Here the natural abundance of self-forming art is captured and proliferated upon the un-blemished canvas. The cocoons are actually broken open, as exotic creatures exit the transitional space of their cocoons and come to know and experience the short profusion of their lives (Hopkins 230). How similar this phenomenon is to the one captured inside the Plexiglass cube of Hans Haacke’s Condensation Cube! (Fig. 37: http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/opensystems/images/3681hanshaackethumb.jpg). How similar the process of water’s transition between liquid and gas is to the germination of a butterfly from larva to winged life! In fact, the quality of self-origination is inherent to all of the previous installations.

This contrast between the organic nature in several of Kapoor’s work and the industrial automation of others provokes questions upon the origins of the will to create. Kapoor has already offered the insight that his finished work stands separate from himself. These examples suggest that its origins are quite separate as well. The mechanism for creation appears to exist as a natural property of the objects. Although they are natural and the creation of occurrences such as the bubble would progress regardless of the will of the entity, they could do so only if conditions were right. The same is true of the butterflies. With the correct conditions of heat and humidity, life happens. Movement is inescapable! Likewise, in Condensation Cube (Fig. 37) with the element of light and warmth, the water will engage in its progressive states.

The steel arm of My Red Homeland (Fig. 31: http://www.elpais.com/recorte/20060128elpbabart_3/SCO250/Ies/My_Red_Homeland_2003_escultura_Anish_Kapoor.jpg) provides the correct conditions for construction as well. Objects are endowed with the necessary tools to progress into the potential of their being. In My Red Homeland this metal appendage becomes the condition necessary for progress just as the natural conditions of temperature or light become the conditions for creation. Perhaps in the reflective surfaces of Cloud Gate, Making the World Many , and others, it is we the people, who create the conditions for creation, through the simple addition of our very presence.

The Space of Weight and the Defiance of Gravity

The balance between extreme weight and lightness of space is an achievement of balance in itself. Hedlin Hayden makes the following insightful observation concerning gravity:

The relationship between an object’s form and the ground on which it sits is spelled gravity . . . weight versus weightlessness is a predominant issue. It is not a situation of either-or, but instead of one juxtaposed aspects of the very same objects (184).

Such a juxtaposition is apparent as a primary element of all of Kapoor’s works, but an especially obvious example is his 1990 installation Dragon (Fig. 39: http://www.artline.ro/admin/_files/photogallery/dragon.jpg). Here, the space of the chamber is broken by a multitude of slate stones, some over two meters in length. They open the space horizontally, rather than vertically. Constantin Brancusi’s Bird in Space (Fig. 38: http://media2.moma.org/collection_images/resized/695/w500h420/CRI_7695.jpg) (1940) demonstrates the typical verticality of earlier sculptures. Weightlessness holds an elemental value to the piece but in this case it is a physical lightness of object. The form is thin, graceful, pointing upwards. This verticality, along with the title Bird in Space, suggests that the object is simply endowed with non-gravitation. It appears to have the ability to stretch its wings and fly from its pedestal. How different this is from the sense of cumbersome weight achieved in Kapoor’s Dragon (Fig. 39). Here, the objects are obviously stony, horizontal, perceivably heavy. The pigment covering them is thick, even, and so intense that it fairly glows, giving an effect of freedom through purity and emptiness as seen in Yves Klein’s Blue Monochrome (Fig. 42: http://media2.moma.org/collection_images/resized/729/w500h420/CRI_8729.jpg). Kapoor’s choice of blue color as well as his decision to use pure pigment seems to fulfill a strikingly similar purpose to that of Klein. As Jonathon Fineberg said of Klein’s Blue Monochrome in Art Since 1940: Strategies of Being, “Where form and line signaled separateness and limitation, color embodied spirit that had coagulated enough to be visible but not enough to precipitate into form” (222). The viewer is drawn close by its soft powdery graininess of Dragon. Viewers feel this sort of spirit of color floating freely from the fences of line and form. The blocks upon which the stones are mounted are not even visible from eye level. The dragons hover as heaviness and weightlessness battle.

Previously, Robert Morris’s work displayed an interaction between object and gravity as well. His 1963 Green Gallery Exhibition (Fig. 40: http://artintelligence.net/review/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/morrisinstallgreengal61hq.jpg) in New York was the first to offer viewers an actual architecture available to their entrance. Several of the blocks are suspended with the support of barely visible cables. Again, the monotone suspended objects seem to float in space.

In the following years, Donald Judd produced several installations that had a similar transforming effect upon properties of space. In 1966, Judd designed Untitled (Fig. 41: http://www.installationart.net/Images/JuddUTStainlessSteelYellowP.jpg), an installation involving six 34-inch cubes each attached to the wall. The evenly spaced row of cubes creates a line across a white wall. The stainless steel and yellow Plexiglas cubes seem to divide the light falling between them. The light is a more visible demonstration of the space being cut and manipulated by a material. As it hits the polished floor, it is reflected in a soft yellow glow. This glow dissolves the line of the floor thus allowing the viewer a sense of weightlessness as well as that attained by the cubes hovering above the floor.

This one question has been posed throughout these works: is the hovering state of the objects a result of their physical properties, a property of space, or perhaps both? Brancusi’s Bird in Space (Fig. 38: http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/attachment.php?attachmentid=8130), as mentioned, suggests that the object has the ability to outdo gravity. However, Judd and Morris’s installations are more questionable. The pristine geometry of the minimalist forms suggests a highly impersonal state. So pure, clean, and static are these installations that everything implicating a human presence or biological existence has been removed. In fact the very air necessary for life seems to have been sucked from the room, leaving it terrifically empty of all familiar properties including gravity. Thus, the weightlessness of the forms has been achieved not through a lack of weight but rather through an absence of gravity.

Kapoor’s Dragon (Fig. 39: http://www.artline.ro/admin/_files/photogallery/dragon.jpg) is much different. The weight of the objects is palpable. The stones are biological in form, the product of heat, pressure, and the cooling of air upon their surfaces. Such familiar properties of nature suggest the existence of the familiar pull of gravity.

Expectedly, the slate stones appear cumbersome in space as they drift along a path that is near to the floor rather than above the heads of the viewers as was the case of Morris’s Green Gallery Exhibition (Fig. 40: http://artintelligence.net/review/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/morrisinstallgreengal61hq.jpg) or at eye level as in Donald Judd’s Untitled (Fig, 35) (1966). Instead an obvious interplay and struggle is taking place between the object’s awkward will to rise and gravity’s downward pull. As gravity becomes an entity, space becomes increasingly activated. Again, possibility is generated in this environment where space is capable of more than the visible objects in its presence.

In One Instant

Space becomes physical. It bears the weight of every mind’s creative potential. An artist stretches his arms between every opposite imaginable in order to attain balance on a grander and purer scale than ever before. Every being present has become the one piece necessary for the completion of a magnificent creation, a part of history in a moment that is never again to be repeated. An end in itself, rather than an appendage of its creator, the works are trusted, competent, and capable of their own progress in a realm transcendent of time and space. Anish Kapoor has fleshed out completely and simultaneously the philosophies and ideals that others had previously considered. The work of Anish Kapoor is simply truthful, completely genius.

Note: This manuscript was written for the course: ARTH320 - Modern Art & Architecture Survey, and the class project was Space in Modernism.

References

1. Baume, Nicholas. Anish Kapoor. Past Present Future. Boston: MIT Press, 2004.

2. Bhabha, Homi K. Anish Kapoor. London: The Beacon Press, 1998.

3. Bregenz, Kunsthaus. Anish Kapoor My Red Homeland. London: Regina Ahlborn-Sievers, 2003.

4. Brown, Julia and Richard Koshalek. Richard Serra Sculpture 1985-1998. Gottingen: Museam of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles and Steidl Verlag, 1997.

5. Burnett, Craig. “Space Odyssey.” ARTnews: January, 2005.

6. Carlise, Elizabeth. “Wild Blue Yonder.” New Statesmen. London: May, 1998.

7. Engelmann, Ines. Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner. New York: Prestel Verlag, 2007.

8. Fineberg, Jonathan. Art Since 1940: Strategies of Being. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2000.

9. Golden, Thelma. “Place Considered”. Art 21: Art in the Twenty-First Century. New York: Harry N Abrams inc Publishers, 2001.

10. Hayden, Malin Hedlin. Out of Minimalism: The Referential Cube. Sweden: University Press: 2003.

11. Heidegger, Martin. Poetry, Language, Thought. Trans. Albert Hofstadter. New York: Harper & Row, 1975.

12. Hess, Thomas. Barnett Newman. New York: Walker and Company, 1969.Hayden,

13. Hopkins, David. After Modern Art. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.

14. Jacob, Mary Jane. “Being with Cloud Gate. ” Anish Kapoor: Past Present Future. Boston: MIT Press, 2004.

15. Jagvonjeul, Kalitan. “Under Destruction.” Artviews. http://www.heyokamagazine.com/HEYOKA.3.PINOCELLI.htm.

16. Judd Donald. “Specific Objects” Art in Theory 1900-200, Pg 824, Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2003.

17. Kavitha. “Following the Flower of Hinduism: Part II Momey Headed Gods and All.” The Odyssey. June 17, 2000: http://www.worldtrek.org/odyssey/asia/061700/061700kavihinudismII.html

18. Knobler, Nathan. The Visual Dialogue. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1971.

19. Lewison, Jeremy. Anish Kapoor: DRAWINGS. Westerham: Westerham Press, 1990.

20. Oliveira, Nicholas with Nicola Oxley and Michael Petry. Installation Art in the New Millenium. London: Thames and Hudson, 2003.

21 Randall, Lisa. Warped Spaces. HarperCollins Publisher, 2005.

22. Rowinski, Zach. Buddhism, Physics and Cosmology. March 28, 2005: http://www.thdl.org/xml/showEssay.php?xml=reference/typologies/Buddhism_Physics_and_Cosmology.xml&l=d1e289

23. Tuchman, Phyllis. “Donald Judd at Tate Modern.” Art in America. Brandt Publications, 2004.

24. Tulsa, John. BBC Radio Interview with Anish Kapoor, http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/johntusainterview/kapoor_transcript.shtml

25. Vidler, Anthony. Reflections on Whiteout: Anish Kapoor at Barbara Gladstone. Milano: Edizioni Charta, 2004.

List of Illustrations:

Fig 1 Anish Kapoor, Double Mirror, 1998, 2 parts, 200x200cm, stainless steel, Sao Paolo, Brazil, April 24, 2009. http://www.studio-international.co.uk/studio-images/kapoor/3b.asp

Fig 2Anish Kapoor, Cloud Gate, 2004, 33x68ft, polished steel, Chicago, IL, June 27, 2011. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5050/5354871348_1e4a927819.jpg

Fig 3 Unknown, The Leshan Giant Buddha, 612-907, Sichuan, China, April 24, 2009. http://pureinsight.org/pi/files/Buddha_statues.jpg

Fig 4 Anish Kapoor, Ascension 2003, smoke and mixed media installation, Sao Paolo Brazil April 24, 2009. http://s3.amazonaws.com/vodpod.com.videos.thumbnail/662727.medium160.jpg

Fig 5 Richard Serra, Switch, 1999, weatherproof steel, 6 plates 13 ft 6in high, 52 ft wide and 2 in deep, New York City, June 27, 2011. http://farticulate.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/a3565c81.jpg

Fig 6 Richard Serra, Tilted Arc, 1981, steel, 12x120ft, New York City, April 24, 2009. http://images.artnet.com/images_US/magazine/features/kuspit/kuspit7-16-07-5.jpg

Fig 7 Henry Moore, Reclining Figure, 1951, 228.5 cm, bronze, June 27, 2011. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/HenryMoore_RecliningFigure_1951.jpg

Fig 8 Unknown, King Mycerinus and Queen Kha-Merer-Nebty, 2532-2510BC, 139.5cm, slate April 24, 2009. http://www.rsu.edu/faculty/jford/Mycerinus.jpg

Fig 9 Michelangelo, David, 1501, white marble, Florence, April 24, 2009. http://www.econ.ohio-state.edu/jhm/arch/david/David_von_Michelangelo.jpg

Fig 10 Bernini, David, 1623-24, white marble, 170 cm, Rome, April 24, 2009. http://www.artchive.com/artchive/b/bernini/bernini_david.jpg

Fig 11 Auguste Rodin, Man With a Broken Nose, Paris, bronze, April 24, 2009. http://lh3.ggpht.com/_3Q7l4_GUfRg/Rsh5Aw6vRuI/AAAAAAAABHA/696CRbV2dPU/P8080254.JPG

Fig 12 August Rodin, The Burghers of Calais 1888, Calais, France, Bronze , June 27, 2011. http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3223/2881589952_9db84c979f.jpg

Fig 13 Barnett Newman, Pagan Void, 1946, 33x38in, June 27, 2011. http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3440/3240448420_fba6e23df8.jpg

Fig 14 Anish Kapoor, Untitled 1989, oil on canvas, April 24, 2009. http://www.tate.org.uk/collection/T/T05/T05864_8.jpg

Fig 15 Anish Kapoor, 1000 Names, 1982, colored pigment, April 24, 2009. http://bp1.blogger.com/_NKy9P3wZP5g/RbDesW0yTmI/AAAAAAAAAGY/AKQ7EIJEP1w/s1600-h/1000NA~1.JPG

Fig 16 Vincent Van Gogh, Starry Night, 1889, oil on canvas, June 27, 2011. http://www.moma.org/collection_images/resized/075/w500h420/CRI_133075.jpg

Fig 17 Medardo Rosso, The Concierge, 1883, wax over plaster, 14 ½ x125/8, April 24, 2009. http://media2.moma.org/collection_images/resized/396/w500h420/CRI_70396.jpg

Fig 18 Jackson Pollock, Full Fathom Five, 1947, oil on canvas with mixed media, 50 7/8 x 30 1/8, April 24, 2009. http://larvalsubjects.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/jacksonpollock-full-fathom-five-1947.jpg

Fig 19 Donald Judd, Untitled 1963, 1965, brass, April 24, 2009. http://doanna07.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/4110-donald_judd_untitled_001.jpg

Fig 20 Arnoldo Pomodoro, Sphere Within A Sphere, brass, traveling, April 24, 2009. http://www.stefanocarlino.com/Immagini/arnaldo_pomodoro.jpg

Fig 21 Dale Chihuli, Glowing Gemstone Polyvitro Chandelier, Blown Glass, Joslyn Art Museum, April 24, 2009. http://www.glassart.net/artists/chihuly/wiki002.jpg

Fig 22 , Anish Kapoor , Making, the World Many, 1997, polished steel, April 24, 2009. http://lh3.ggpht.com/_rXaLmwHAjpc/RzVajzmmZHI/AAAAAAAAAt8/sKX6tSfCtFs/DSCF1660.jpg

Fig 23 Anish Kapoor, When I am Pregnant, 1992, plaster and dry wall installation, April 24, 2009. http://gregcookland.com/journal/uploaded_images/picKapoorWhenIamPregnant-709817.jpg

Fig 24 , Rachel Whiteread , Closet, 1998, 160x88x37cm, dresser, foam and mixed media Hayden Out of Minimalism: The Referential Cube, 122

Fig 25 Anish Kapoor, Marsyas, 2002, Tate Modern, PVC membrane and three metal rings, April 24, 2009. http://www.0lll.com/architecture-exhibitions/gallery15/marsyas_01.jpg

Fig 26 Georgia O’Keefe, Red Poppy, Gouache, April 24, 2009. http://www.rap.ucar.edu/staff/park/okeeffe_red_poppy.jpg

Fig 27 Ernesto Neto, Walking in Venus Blue Cave, 2001 polyamide, June 27, 2011: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/.../Neto%2BWalking%2Bin%2BVenus%2BBlue%2BCave%2B2001.jpg

Fig 28 Michael Petry, Contagion, 2000. Hand blown glass, flood lights, Nicolas De Oliveira, Installation Art in the New Millennium the Empire of the Senses, 160

Fig 29 Anish Kapoor, Her Blood, 1998, stainless steel and lacquer, April 24, 2009. http://www.tate.org.uk/about/tatereport/2004/img/listimg/kapoor_T11763.jpg

Fig 30 Anish Kapoor, The Healing of St Thomas, 1989-90 Mixed media: http://www.euroartmagazine.com/artUps/1279227158.gif

Fig 31 Anish Kapoor, My Red Homeland, Vaseline, paint, steel and hydraulic motor, April 24, 2009. http://www.elpais.com/recorte/20060128elpbabart_3/SCO250/Ies/My_Red_Homeland_2003_escultura_Anish_Kapoor.jpg

Fig 32 Jasper Johns, Device Circle, 1955-65, paint, wood, canvas, June 27, 2011: http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/2007/johns/images/215-016.jpg

Fig 33 Anish Kapoor, Past Present Future, April 24, 2009. http://www.berkshirefinearts.com/uploadedImages/articles/702_Anish-Kapoor-Past-Pr831062.jpg

Fig 34 Anish Kapoor, Svayambh, 2007, wax, paint and Vaseline, April 24, 2009. http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2355/1932182949_d0bc1aae63.jpg?v=0

Fig 35 Anish Kapoor, Untitled, 2007 Resin, Baume, Anish Kapoor Past Present Future, 24

Fig 36 Damien Hirst, In and Out of Love, 1991, tropical butterflies, canvas, foliage, April 24, 2009. http://www.artchive.com/artchive/h/hirst/hirst_thousand.jpg

Fig 37 Hans Haacke, Condensation Cube, 1963, plexiglass, 76 x 76 x76 cm, April 24, 2009. http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/opensystems/images/3681hanshaackethumb.jpg

Fig 38 Constantin Brancusi, Bird in Space, 1928, bronze, 54 x 8 ½ x 6 1/2”, April 24, 2009. http://media2.moma.org/collection_images/resized/695/w500h420/CRI_7695.jpg

Fig 39 Anish Kapoor, Dragon, 1973, slate and pigment, June 27, 2011: http://www.artline.ro/files/mItems/image/5/dragon.jpg

Fig 40 Robert Morris, Green Gallery Exhibition, wood, plaster, and paint installation, April 24, 2009. http://artintelligence.net/review/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/morrisinstallgreengal61hq.jpg

Fig 41 Donald Judd, Untitled, 1966, stainless steel, April 24, 2009. http://www.installationart.net/Images/JuddUTStainlessSteelYellowP.jpg

Fig 42 Yves Klein, Blue Monochrome, 1961, dry pigment in a synthetic polymer medium on cotton over plywood, 6’4 7/8” x 55 1/8”, April 24, 2009. http://media2.moma.org/collection_images/resized/729/w500h420/CRI_8729.jpg

Finding Everything in the Space of Emptiness

Rose Sexton
South Dakota State University

Leda Cempellin - Faculty Project Coordinator

**Where Nothing has Happened**

The Symbol of Space

Windows

Striking a Balance

Everything is Possible

Drawings

Surface, Reflection, Process

Windows, Skin, and Automation

The Space of Weight and the Defiance of Gravity

In One Instant

References

Finding Everything in the Space of Emptiness

Rose Sexton South Dakota State University

Leda Cempellin - Faculty Project Coordinator

Where Nothing has Happened

The Symbol of Space

Windows

Striking a Balance

Everything is Possible

Drawings

Surface, Reflection, Process

Windows, Skin, and Automation

The Space of Weight and the Defiance of Gravity

In One Instant

References

Rose Sexton
South Dakota State University

**Where Nothing has Happened**