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"The art I love, the art I make ... celebrates the sensual while always knowing that decay is close" - Anish Kapoor.
Black Within Me! Combusted Self! Wounds that Glow! And, more than anything, The world trembles when I retrieve from my ancient past what I need to live in the depths of Myself! They sound like song titles for an emo band. Perhaps Fall Out Boy or Panic! at the Disco. But they're not. They're the titles of artworks made, recently, by Anish Kapoor and Anish Kapoor is sixty-seven years old.
Red Within Her (2020)
Despite that caveat, and the fact that I didn't really understand exactly what he's trying to do here, I quite enjoyed his collection of paintings and sculptures at Modern Art in Oxford when I visited recently with my friends Colin and Patricia.
Kapoor, we know - and are told, is 'renowned for creating substantial works that explore the perception and physicality of the human body'. Which means we get lots of blood, innards, veins, and things that can be construed, should you wish, as hearts or even vaginas. Certainly Red Within Her contains some form of orifice.
Initiation (2020)
Dark Tom (2020)
Initiation, looks like the aftermath of a ritualistic sacrifice and Dark Tom reminds of the top of a volcano as molten lava spews, or more likely ejaculates, forth from its head.
Which is nice. But I'm still not quite sure what Kapoor's motivations are for these works other than to make something eye catching (which, in itself, is fine). There's one board up on the walls at Modern Art that gives a bit of background to both Kapoor and the show. Apparently, almost all of these works were made in his London studio during the pandemic and speak about the vulnerability of our bodies.
Kapoor's works, we're told, invite us to consider vital questions such as "what is it to be a living body in this world?" and "what is it to bring something into being" and, to be fair, the visceral nature of works like Y Stick and Rite certainly do that.
Y Stick (2021)
Rite (2020)
If in a somewhat in direct way. Sometimes it's more like being in an abattoir, or even a hospital, than an art gallery. Except no matter how fleshy and sinister Kapoor makes his work they could never compare to the real horrors you'd experience in an abattoir or the real pain and sadness you may find in any local hospital.
But art cannot replace life. It must merely reflect it and Kapoor chooses to reflect uncomfortable parts of it. The title My Terrible Insides reminds me of how I've felt after a few days of overdoing it and Prosthetic III reminded me of Viz's large testicled character Buster Gonad.
Prosthetic III (2020)
My Terrible Insides (2020)
Blood Rising (2020)
Now Here With Her Oneiric Instruments (2020)
Neither of which, I'd imagine, were Kapoor's intention. You're curiously drawn into works like Blood Rising and, for the title alone, Now Here With Her Oneiric Instruments before you're wrongfooted by the simplicity of the oldest work in the show, Vein.
Next to it there is a work, one of several, that looks simply like a slop bucket which is a bit disappointing. You end up torn between admiration for Kapoor for creating such deeply human concerns and angered by the fact that some of the work comes across as a bit lazy.
Vein (2001)
First and Last (2020)
On balance, the show was more hit than miss. I enjoyed making a face out of First and Last (sadly, Kapoor did not add 'and Always') and the volcanic eruptions of Babel II and Black Within Me made great use of colour. I love the yellows, oranges, and reds that combine with the black to make for powerful, if often indecipherable, imagery.
In his attempts to understand the human body, the violence of existence, and, ultimately, the decay we all must suffer, Kapoor has made better work than this in the past. Although, perhaps, it has never been quite so raw. During a time when a lot of people have suffered, and are still suffering, great pain - both physical and mental, it was probably always going to be that way.
Babel II (2021)
Black Within Me (2021)
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