夏行者在巴黎

Anish Kapoor 在今年九月，將成為史上佔據皇家藝術學院所有展場空間的第二人。上一次已經是二十年前， Henry Moore 在過世兩年後，有幸讓 Royal Academy of Arts 為他辦了一場空前的特展。而在幾個月後， 印度裔英國當代藝術家 Anish Kapoor 將用他的大炮轟炸 RA 的白牆。

Kapoor 喜歡使用紅色，而紅色也是許多名作的主題。曾經有人跟我說，如果想做藝術品，只要「 Make it big, make it red, and you will be huge!!」 我一直頗認同的。紅色也是我很喜歡的顏色之一，它充滿個性，既爆炸又溫存，既躁鬱又喜樂。 Cildo Meireles 的紅色房間也讓人十分難忘。而 Kapoor 不只在這個作品「Shooting into the Corner」 使用紅色，他的 The Dismemberment of Jeanne D'Arc、Marsyas、Blood Relations…等等都是以紅色來表現。


Blood Relations and 1000 Names are on show at a church in Brighton. Picture © Dave Morgan, courtesy The Artist and Lisson Gallery


Marsyas 2002, installation at Tate Modern
© Tate Photography

這是 Kapoor 曾在 Turbine Hall 展出的作品。為了完全運用 Turbine Hall 巨大的空間，Kapoor 從希臘神話中的烈士作為發想原點，做了這個大規模的裝置，挑戰觀者的視覺觀感。很可惜，我還沒有親眼看過這個作品。

Anish Kapoor is renowned for his enigmatic sculptural forms that permeate physical and psychological space. Kapoor's inventiveness and versatility have resulted in works ranging from powdered pigment sculptures and site-specific interventions on wall or floor, to gigantic installations both in and outdoors. Throughout, he has explored what he sees as deep-rooted metaphysical polarities: presence and absence, being and non-being, place and non-place and the solid and the intangible.

Marsyas, Anish Kapoor’s sculpture for the Turbine Hall, comprises three steel rings joined together by a single span of PVC membrane. Two are positioned vertically, at each end of the space, while a third is suspended parallel with the bridge. Seemingly wedged into place, the geometry generated by these three rigid steel structures determines the sculpture’s overall form, a shift from vertical to horizontal and back to vertical again.

Kapoor began the project in January 2002, soon realising that the only way he could challenge the daunting height of the Turbine Hall was, paradoxically, to use its length. He approached the space as a rectangular box with a shelf (the bridge) in the middle of it, and over many months, explored its potential through a series of drawings and sculptural maquettes. Human scale and the relationship of the viewer to the work was central to his thinking.

The PVC membrane has a fleshy quality, which Kapoor describes as being ‘rather like a flayed skin'. The title refers to Marsyas, a satyr in Greek mythology, who was flayed alive by the god Apollo. The sculpture’s dark red colour suggests something ‘of the physical, of the earthly, of the bodily.’ Kapoor has commented, ‘I want to make body into sky'. Marsyas confounds spatial perception, immersing the viewer in a monochromatic field of colour. It is impossible to view the entire sculpture from any one position. Instead we experience it as a series of discrete encounters, in which we are left to construct the whole.


No gilded warrior: Anish Kapoor's sculpture The Dismemberment of Jeanne D'Arc, in the Old Municipal Market in Brighton. Photograph: Richard Saker

這個作品名為「肢解聖女貞德」。對 Kapoor 來說，聖女貞德的形象，並不是一位勇士，而是一個生育、生命延續的象徵，她如同洞穴一般，承接了許多人各式各樣的期待。她已不再是她自己，而是在人們口中不斷傳遞、演變、誇張、遺忘的傳奇。Kapoor 改變了一般人對「雕像」的觀感，當我們走在教堂裡、或是博物館裡，被一個個雪白的肢體所震懾; 或者是走在街道上，感到一尊尊風吹日曬的雕像，下面有著或者熟悉或者陌生的名字，實體的「形象」與「名字」似乎是我們唯一認識這些雕像的線索。然而，Kapoor 選擇了另外一種途徑。他將幾何、凹凸、椎柱、鏡面…等形狀和材質，和意念相結合，於是，雕像不再是安然立於一個基座上俯視著我們，它變成一片地貌，吸引我們靠近，在我們疑惑時同時給我們反思的機會。


Sans titre (Untitled) – Creation
Commission Jean de Loisy, artistic consultant for “Estuaire” event


Cloud Gate by Anish Kapoor in Millennium Park, Chicago. Photograph: Jewel Samad/AFP

這件作品放在芝加哥的千禧公園，題為 Cloud Gate。在中文世界裡有篇曲德義先生的文章就在說這件作品，可以參考看看。而除了擅用紅色外，運用有反射性、鏡像材質，以及抽象形狀的運用，也是 Kapoor 非常常使用的表現手法。







非常期待他在九月份的展覽!! 大家到時別忘了去看!!