The reviews of this not-retrospective of Anish Kapoor at the Royal Academy that have been published in the last couple have weeks (read Adrian Searle's here) have emphasised the violence of these wax and pigment installation-performances, though in material, formalist terms. However art that appears to do violence to the institution, both spatial and ideological, reinforces these structures rather than subverting them. It's like arm wrestling your dad; he's just letting you think you can win.
Read the article the other day, i think it's very profoundly written. Also worth checking out the another review on Anish Kapoor by Jonathan Jones.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2009/sep/14/anish-kapoor-art
Interestingly enough, it has aroused ongoing discussion on the topics such as semiotics and visual culture in museum context and whether the spoken language (narrative) should take over visual language which I think are central to the questions we are coming cross in the course and are worth pondering on.