Anish Kapoor

Private Collection, Europe (acquired from the artist)

London, Royal Academy of Arts, Bronze, September - December 2012, cat. no. 157, pp. 252 and 280, illustrated in color

This work is in excellent condition. Upon close inspection and visible only from an acute side angle, the reverse red lacquer coating exhibits a handful of minor abrasions and pinhead spots of either loss or anomaly located primarily on the right side as illustrated in the catalogue (at 3, 4 and 5 o'clock) and at the top of the red lacquer drum which mounts the work to the wall.
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Radiant and flawlessly fashioned, Untitled is a masterpiece of Anish Kapoor’s iconic series of resplendent concave mirrors. Seemingly suspended above the ground, the present work confronts the viewer with a curved face of elegant bronze that delicately arcs inwards to encompass the totality of its ambient space. Reflecting light and emitting warmth, this piece possesses a majestic solar elegance. In 2012, the very same year of its creation, Untitled was prestigiously included in the critically acclaimed blockbuster exhibition at the Royal Academy of Art in London, entitled Bronze. Revered as one of only a handful of contemporary artworks exhibited, Kapoor’s jewel-like dish was juxtaposed against some of the most extraordinary masterpieces from art history ever to be cast in bronze. An exhibition that eschewed chronological order, the pieces on view spanned the breadth of civilization from a multitude of cultures and societies. Meandering through ancient China to the birth of Buddhism in India through to medieval England, Renaissance Italy and post-war America, works ranging from Etruscan beasts, African masks, a Picasso Baboon, a Louise Bourgeois Spider, Beer cans by Jasper Johns, and a historic piece by Leonardo da Vinci (his only work in bronze) were exhibited side by side in this treasure trove, or wunderkammer, of a museum show. As the most recent work on view, Kapoor’s sun-like disc piqued a dialogue with the very oldest object – a sculpture depicting the chariot of the sun dating back to 14^thCentury BC. Indeed, bronze was the first alloy discovered and used in the prehistoric age; a copper alloy usually combined with tin, this blend of soft metals proved a resilient material that leant itself to the creation of aesthetic objects. Explicating the mercurial potential of a medium that belongs to the earliest reaches of prehistoric craft, Kapoor’s dish visualizes for the contemporary moment the precious liquidity of a medium so fluid and pliant that it moulded the very course of our artistic development.

Kapoor began creating his astonishing curved sculptures at the turn of the new millennium, utilizing the potential of the format in a range of different colored metallics, of which the bronze, gold and silver examples are strikingly powerful in their magnificent celebration of a perfect polished surface: a recognition of an almost alchemical process in which raw material becomes gleaming gold. In a recent interview Kapoor recalled the aesthetic revelation which led to the creation of his mirrored works following his sculptural inquiry into seemingly infinite void-like space: “I stumbled onto the idea that one could make an object that was concave. Suddenly this was not just a camouflaged object; it seemed to be a space full of mirror just like the previous works had been a space full of darkness. That felt like a real discovery. What happened was that it wasn’t just a mirror on a positive form – we have had that experience from Brancusi onwards. This seemed to be a different thing, a different order or object from a mirrored exterior…” (the artist in conversation with Hossein Amirsadeghi in Hossein Amirsadeghi and Maryam Homayoun Eisler, eds., Sanctuary: Britain’s Artists and their Studios, London 2011, p. 436) The inversed reflection creates a powerful sense of an alternate or inverse space beyond its circular limit. The luminous reflectivity of the surface causes shimmering ripples of light to reflect off the surrounding environment whilst seeming to radiate light outwards from the inverted orb itself. Indeed, like a votive icon, Untitled sustains our attention: by circumnavigating the work the viewer becomes enveloped within the space of the work itself.

Perfectly round and flawlessly reflective, Kapoor’s dish is magnetically disorienting. This piece relays a warped echo of our world in rose-gold hue. Glowing, orb-like and emitting a pale warm light akin to the setting sun, Untitled hovers against the wall and unmistakably invites solar associations – an endless stream of allusions spanning myriad cultures and mythologies entrenched in notions of life and light. From the sun god of Ancient Egypt to the halos of Christian iconography, Kapoor’s hovering metallic orbs deliver a contemporary manifestation of the sun’s manifold associations. Indeed, as highlighted by the Bronze exhibition, the disparity yet connection between ancient and contemporary here illuminates the very timelessness of Kapoor’s artistic project.