ANISH KAPOOR
"Memory"
October 21, 2009 - March 28, 2010
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is hosting one of the most unusual name of late twentieth century and early twenty-first century's art. Anish Kapoor' and his gigantic work "Memory."
Anish Kapoor's genius lies in his ability to have created a site-specific work that engages with two very different exhibition scenarios. Using Cor-Ten steel for the first time, Memory (2008) represents a new milestone in Kapoor's career. Memory is positioned tightly within the compound of its gallery space. Its thin Cor-Ten skin, only eight millimeters thick, suggests a form that is ephemeral and unmonumental. The sculpture appears to defy gravity as it gently glances up against the peripheries of the gallery walls and ceiling, and down again to the floor. Its inaccessibility forces viewers to negotiate the work at a remove and to contemplate its ensuing fragmentation by attempting to piece together the images retained in their memories. As such, they are required to exert more effort in the act of seeing. Kapoor describes this process as creating "mental sculpture." As participants rather than as mere spectators of Memory, they become hyperconscious of their own positions in space.
