Anish Kapoor – The Extraordinary "Leviathan" Special Exhibition

Images and text / Chen Chi-Hsiang Exhibition period: May 11 – June 23, 2011 Venue: Grand Palais, Paris

Foreword: The annual Monumenta exhibition opens at the Grand Palais in Paris on this fine, sunny May day. This year, it specially invites the internationally renowned British-Indian artist Anish Kapoor, famous for his sculptures imbued with Eastern mystique and extraordinary scale. Through his exploration of material and space, he completely renews contemporary object-sculpture art, expanding the possibilities of current sculpture.

Kapoor's works are mesmerizing, possessing a mysterious energy, and are particularly enduring to behold. Concise and organic forms, magical colors, reflective mirror surfaces, extraordinary proportions, unusual volumes, architectural geometry, and diverse material media constitute a subtle and profound physical phenomenon, spirituality, emptiness, and poetry, full of imaginative space, all very eye-catching, with strong evocative power, awakening unusual inner spirit and consciousness.

His numerous works guide people's perception and experience: how to construct a reliable form, how to confront a massive object within our fragile conscious understanding, how to immerse oneself in a deep, dark color to find an original feeling, and through a revelation of deep inner consciousness, reawaken people's awareness and spiritual resonance. Color, proportion, the inner meaning of these object-materials guide people from a method of precise modeling to a vocabulary people consider. The artist explains: "A sculpture as such carries the body, viewed in a material way, we thus establish a relationship with the subject, form, non-form, primordial form, etc. Its deepest feeling is equally... physiological."

"Leviathan" – The World Inside and Out: The proposition "Leviathan" comes from the imagination of the monster in the Bible, said to be a huge, unidentifiable sea monster, capable of turning heaven and earth upside down, creating various disasters on Earth, embodying a powerful and sinister idea. The monster is never merciful, condensing our outdated, stale fears; thinking of it brings fear. "Leviathan," throughout human history, is like an obsessive image in the subconscious of Western civilization, even appearing in stormy black nights or nightmares: here, when entering the Grand Palais to visit, one must pass through a dark antechamber revolving door, leading people back to an ancient and unknown world of imagination. Stepping inside the work, an extraordinary atmosphere permeates the entire space, immersing oneself in this mesmerizing, mysterious red, becoming aware of the present situation and meditating.

"Leviathan" is a colossal creature, an architectural geometric form, entirely constructed from fire-resistant PVC plastic material and special red fabric, a perfect spatial installation. The visit is divided into interior and exterior. First, entering the internal core of the work from the darkroom revolving door, as the eyes slowly regain vision in complete darkness, an unexpected surprise: facing directly ahead are three subtle, profound, massive vortices, creating a visual and spiritual shock, an introverted energy and beauty, as if one is about to be drawn into them. The entire space is permeated with a mysterious red atmosphere; within this extraordinary enclosed elliptical space, one feels as if entering a virtual world. It initiates an intense experience for the whole body, mind, and spirit, starting from the warm red perception, awakening deep inner consciousness, and with the changing light of the three great vortices, leading into a world of spiritual meditation, merging into the overall red atmosphere, experiencing that vast, boundless cosmic power and infinite force. Between reality and imagination, illusion and actuality, virtual and ritual, body and spirit, physical and psychological, perception and experience, surface and depth, material and non-material, philosophy and metaphysics, existence and beyond, it inspires reverie, sailing towards a world of existential mystery, comprehending the profundity and wonder of art.

The exterior of the "Leviathan" sculpture is another world, tamely imprisoned within the vast space of the Grand Palais, constituting an extraordinary unnatural nature, a space within a space, manifesting an unreal virtual situation and imagination. The whole is shaped from PVC plastic material, its form within a strict architectural circular geometric structure. Three huge circles interweave seamlessly, connected into an immense body, soft and flowing, full of vitality, with a majestic posture that looks down on all, like a super-giant animal toy, with no sense of fear at all, even possessing a certain affinity; audiences like to caress it. Visitors move around the sculpture, touching its smooth surface, marveling at the way the light reflects off the red fabric, creating a dynamic interplay of shadow and color. The sheer scale of the work demands attention, forcing viewers to reconsider their relationship with space and form. As they walk around the perimeter, the perspective shifts, revealing new angles and details that were previously hidden. The experience is both intimate and overwhelming, a testament to Kapoor's ability to transform simple materials into profound artistic statements.