Leviathan.

A posting from Poetry Café

Each year MONUMENTA invites an internationally renowned artist to turn their vision to the vast Nave of Paris’ Grand Palais. This year’s featured artist is Anish Kapoor who inspired the Vienna crowd in 2009 with his wax statue installation in the Vienna Museum of Applied Arts. His installation “Leviathan″ is a 100 metre red platic tube that nearly fills the Grand Palais Nave completely. The artist found his inspiration in the same-titled book by Thomas Hobbes who described democracy as a monster. At the same time he has dedicated his work to the Chinese artist Ai WeiWei who is currently being held captive by his own government.

Depending on the time of day the visitor experiences the inside of the master piece as a labyrinth which allows a glimpse of the iron construction of the Grand Palais. When entering, the visitor is swallowed by the artwork. Giving a face to the concept of the universal artist, the Bombay-born British sculptor fascinates and enchants with his artworks at the edge of worlds.

The falsely simple lines, often achieved by technological exploits, as well as their immediate visual impact, changes those who explore his artworks by foot or by eye – changing them in both how they see and how they think. To create an aesthetic and physical shock, an experience of colour that is simultaneously poetic, thoughtful and formidable, one on a scale with the verticality and light of the Nave, “this interior greater than any exterior”: thus can be summarized Anish Kapoor’s ambition for MONUMENTA 2011, for his return to Paris thirty years after his very first exhibition. It can still be enjoyed until the 23rd of June.

Links:
The artist about his work including impressions of “Leviathan” on YouTube: to the video.
Monumenta: to the Website