March 30, 2017 |
If you’re looking to make the switch to vegetarianism, but have yet to find the required moment of enlightenment, Anish Kapoor’s latest exhibition at Lisson Gallery may be the stimulus you’ve been searching for. Marking his sixteenth show with the gallery, the works feel like an organic evolution from his gory 2015 paintings Internal Object in Three Parts, this time the silicone ‘paintings’ have come off the walls and morphed into three visceral forms, which, in the words of Kapoor himself, are best described as “meat bags”.
Covered in the sort of medical gauze you associate with horrific open wounds, the sculptures appear as hideous amalgamations of tissue, sinew and fat, blackened patches suggest charred flesh, while the gloss of the paint hints at something disturbingly fresh. Given the more everyday use of silicone, augmenting those God given features, it should come as no surprise that the sculptures take on such a striking likeness to the human anatomy, but seen in the flesh (I couldn’t resist), you can’t help but stare with the same morbid fascination as motorists rubber necking a pile-up.
Accompanying these amorphous sculptures are more orthodox, wall hung paintings, which have never been shown together with the sculptures, but are equally visceral, with a hauntingly apocalyptic feel to them. Shown alongside Kapoor’s signature concave mirrors, this time partially coated in a maroon-red matte surface, the works swallow, even dizzy the viewer, like putting on a pair of specs that are far too strong. According to Kapoor, the mirrors call into question the status of an object by blurring the line between what is, and isn’t really there. If this sounds confusing, then you’ll have to visit the show for yourself and see what the mirror reveals to you.
Anish Kapoor’s exhibition will be on at Lisson Gallery, Lisson Street, from 31st March to 6th May 2017
Photograph by Dave Morgan
