Blood Relations and 1000 Names are on show at a church in Brighton. Picture © Dave Morgan, courtesy The Artist and Lisson Gallery
Review: Anish Kapoor - Blood Relations, Fabrica, Brighton, until May 24 2009
What can be said about Anish Kapoor that hasn't been said already? An award-winning sculptor and visionary, Kapoor has exhibited his work extensively across the globe, including the polished steel sky-mirror Cloud Gate in Chicago and the monolithic alien structure Marsyas at Tate Modern. This year, Kapoor adds to his repertoire with an appointment as Guest Artistic Director for Brighton Festival.
Bombay-born Kapoor has selected two new installations, Blood Relations and 1000 Names, 1979-1980, to occupy Fabrica, a light, airy church in central Brighton with its innards removed. It’s the perfect space to house a bloody, nightmarish sculpture and its more serene, colourful companion.
The bronze and wax bath of Blood Relations has been constructed with the words of Salman Rushdie, a controversial figure in the literary world for his alleged Islamic blasphemy.
Picture © Dave Morgan, courtesy The Artist and Lisson Gallery
This piece continues Kapoor's ongoing themes of polarity; presence and absence, solid and intangible and inside and outside.
Engraved text circles the two bronze boxes, juxtaposing clunky archaic script about throat-slitting with modern slang.
One of the boxes contains a mess of synthetic gore and is joined to the other by a crude seal of red wax, glistening wet. The piece is compelling yet gruesome – Rushdie’s exotic language is engraved with a sterile precision and begs to be read.
The indefinitely lighter 1000 Names, 1979-80 is a five-element collection of unusual shapes, dusted in earthy pigments of red, yellow and white.
A sturdy rectangular box presides over a small group of smaller mounds, sliced by their opposing colours. While it's possible that these pigments represent the vibrancy of an Indian spice market, it’s clear that they have been selected with the utmost care.
As I circled the installation, the noonday sun pushed through Fabrica's upper windows, casting shadows and accenting its brilliant tinctures.
A second project entitled Music Boxes, with composer Brian Elias, runs from May 2 – 24 at Fabrica.
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