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The interior of Anish Kapoor’s “Leviathan” at the Grand Palais. (c. 1925-26). © Adagp, Paris 2011. |
Warning! This article is a spoiler. If you can, go see Anish Kapoor’s exhibition “Leviathan” at Paris’s Grand Palais before you read on. The main …
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The interior of Anish Kapoor’s “Leviathan” at the Grand Palais. (c. 1925-26). © Adagp, Paris 2011. |
Warning! This article is a spoiler. If you can, go see Anish Kapoor’s exhibition “Leviathan” at Paris’s Grand Palais before you read on. The main thrill of this “Monumenta” installation comes from the surprise effect, which may be diminished if you know what to expect.
After passing through a black revolving door (sure to create bottlenecks and long waiting lines) one by one, visitors find themselves inside an otherworldly chamber filled with a pinkish light, their heads spinning with a dazzling sensation of vertigo as they take in the curving, translucent walls and the three openings, which seem to extend into infinite space, enticing them to jump through the rabbit hole to enter a space-time warp – or maybe Wonderland itself.
Where is the Grand Palais in all this, you may ask. One of the challenges for the artist invited to stage a one-man show (no woman has yet been asked) each year for the “Monumenta” series sponsored by the French government’s Ministry of Culture is to use the spectacular wide-open spaces of the Belle Epoque Grand Palais, with its intricate ironwork and glass roof, to the full. When I first entered Kapoor’s cavern, it seemed to be a small world unto itself that had nothing to do with the Grand Palais, but then the sun came out, imprinting the struts of the building’s metallic structure on the translucent walls, in a lovely trick. By the way, the photo above does not communicate the effect at all.
After that disorienting experience, the next step is to leave by the revolving door and go around into the main space of the building, which seems to have been invaded by a mutant blimp with three gargantuan bulbous forms and a smooth, purplish surface. This is the structure you have just been inside of. Hard to believe that this seemingly opaque material (it is actually PVC and you can handle a piece of it at a desk set up on the side for that purpose) is translucent, but the “blimp” is the same one that you were looking at from the inside. The lines you saw in the chamber were created by the seams of the structure, whose pieces were sewn together on an enormous industrial sewing machine inside the Grand Palais. The whole thing was then inflated.
While not as awe-inspiring as the chamber inside, the “blimp” has an imposing presence, and its shiny surface reflects the ever-changing light in the Grand Palais. At night, spotlights take over from the sun.
After visiting the main hall, I returned to the inner chamber to experience that vertigo again,
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The outside of Kapoor’s “Leviathan.” |
but it no longer worked its magic. First impressions count in this show. Thank you, Anish Kapoor, for playing with our perceptions – as you almost always do so well – and offering us another way to look at the Grand Palais from the inside out.
Kapoor fans will be pleased to know that they can see the artist in person in discussions with Jean Nouvel and others at the Grand Palais in conjunction with Monumenta (click here for details) and can also see more of his work in exhibitions at the Galerie Kamel Mennour and at the Chapelle des Petits Augustins in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Paris. A 2010 film by Heinz Peter Schwerfel, Le Monde selon Anish Kapoor, will be shown on Arte on June 6 at 11:25pm and will be available on DVD as of June 15.
Grand Palais: Avenue Winston Churchill, 75008 Paris. Métro: Champs-Elysées-Clemenceau. Open Monday and Wednesday, 10am-7pm; Thursday-Sunday, 10am-10pm. Closed Tuesday. Admission: €4. Through June 23. www.monumenta.com
Galerie Kamel Mennour: 47, rue Saint-André des Arts, 75006 Paris. May 12-July 23. www.kamelmennour.com
Chapelle des Petits-Augustins: Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris: 14, rue Bonaparte, 75006 Paris. May 12-June 11
Reader Janette Parr writes: “I saw this installation last night – in conjunction with a performance by Charlemagne Palestine. The effects in both spaces are well worth experiencing; the interior display is best seen and definitely enhanced, I think, when combined with the music. There are further soirées planned until June 23. Recommended.”
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