An art that creates a world

Let us start with two statements made by Anish Kapoor. They are taken from the interview with Douglas Maxwell for Art Monthly in May,1990 which was published in the catalogue for the artist's exhibition held in Milan in 1995, whose organization was attended by Germano Celant by appointment of the Fondazione Prada. The said statements seem to be very helpful in attempting a first definition of this artist who is considered to be one of the most interesting sculptors of the last fifteen years. "When I was in India I used to paint. It was abstract painting and things like that, in the early Pollock's style which is still fascinating to me. Rothko and his time" and also "I am a painter who is a sculptor". This paradox already poses questions regarding not only Kapoor's work and artistic conception, but concerning the definition of art as a whole for they are the same questions that people have in mind when they wonder what this contemporary art really is, seeing as the painters describe themselves as sculptors, the sculptors as painters, artists say they are not artists any more and art is thought of as an anti-art.
A generally valid way of answering could be that of mentioning the eternal dilemma between appearing and being. Therefore we must immedately point out that Kapoor's statements make him rightfully part of that generation of artists who, like Duchamp, develop alchemic issues and act according to even paradoxical ideas or who, like Fontana, realize works that go beyond appearances looking for the real being; they have another predecessor in Judd, who said that "the new work seems obviously closer to sculpture than it is to painting, but in reality it is closer to painting".

In fact, Kapoor's statements reveal the nature of a man who uses tridimensionality - which is part of sculpture and architecture, and thus of the concrete reality - to explore the principles of surfaces and of the illusory vision which are typical features of painting. Already in his early works he used to cover up tridimensional forms like half-spheres, cones, pyramids, parallelepipeds and the like with white, red, yellow and blue powders. The choice of using the basic colors reminds us of painting, just like the powders that question the tridimensionality and the compactness of the forms making the entire surface vibrate. Forms and colors are pure and yet they look as if they were just about to dissolve, to turn into anti-matter, into air, or spirit, so that they pass from the state of appearing to that of being by means of a natural phenomenon; this has been expressed through the use of colors by Yves Kline, too, to whom Kapoor refers. Thus we come to another goal in the interpretation of his works, that is, the form that is about to dissolve and is therefore full of tension; the apparent quietness that makes us reflect upon the latent power of matter itself, upon the energy it contains, and so makes matter nothing but a metaphor of the entire universe. In this way, the artist tells us about universal and eternal issues such as the creation of the world, both in its material and in its spiritual aspect.