Anish Kapoor & Tony Cragg on Modern Sculptures: Matter, Space and Form
Kapoor, Double, 2006
Cragg, Good Face, 2007
Sculpture is no longer what it used to be. Contemporary sculpture serves a purpose that is less clear, it is shaped by what the artist wants to express. Anish Kapoor and Tony Cragg’s sculptures exemplify abstract sculpture, characterized by geometric and organic simplification, a focus on material and texture, and spatial experimentation.
Cragg’s sculptures communicate more through form and thought than through a direct message. His works create a bond through their form and material presence rather than a straightforward narrative.
Unlike Cragg, Anish Kapoor’s sculptures convey a message to the audience. He invites viewers to participate in the act of creating new realities through his convex mirrors, spiral shapes and emphasis on color. His philosophical dualities explore the relationship between inside and outside. He reinterprets geometrical forms for his own conceptual purposes.
Both artists use material as a form of artistic language, Kapoor employs voids, wax, and color as a material, challenging viewer’s perception. His use of color particularly red and Vantablack acts as a statement of spatial force.
Cragg incorporates manmade materials into his work, seeking a balance between the nature and artificial. His biomorphic abstractions allow him to inhabit between spaces. His sculptures have a distinct character.
The Debate on Matter:
Kapoor’s artistic style is rooted in the relationship between matter and anti-matter. Cragg as an artist belongs to matter theory. Matter in art comes up as a physical presence and material as message. He treated his sculptures as living systems, where material transformation is central. His forms layers and blends organically. On the other hand, Anti-matter is a neglection or dissolution, art as an energy or event. Through Kapoor’s convex surfaces we see a collapse of a stable form.
Spatial Experiment:
Spatial theory plays a crucial role in shaping the relationship between sculpture and viewer. Lucio Fontana’s Manifesto Blanco (1946) claimed that art should break free from two-dimensional forms and interact with space, time, energy, and movement. He believed that materials should engage with space. Like we see in his Spatial Environment,1949 artwork, the work itself engages with room through its hanged form from the ceiling and light characteristics. The viewers exist within the space of the artwork, since the art is in contact with the space, the room that contains the work becomes the art itself. So, this connection with the space reflects as an invitation to viewer to exist in the artwork rather than only viewing it. This aspect is recreated in a different manner through sculptural installations of Anish Kapoor; he also calls viewer to the scene and not solely represents the space but activates it.
Final note
Two sculptures placed in the garden of Sakıp Sabancı museum share a rich black color. Though made from different materials; one bronze, the other is granite. They engage in dialogue through their shared chromatic presence. Sculptures placement in the garden is crosswise, on an inclined surface Double is on top, facing the museum and engages with the main subject of the whole museum, the Equestrian Villa. Good Face by Cragg is right in the curve of the road—little easy to miss since it blends so well with its surroundings.
Both works of Tony Cragg and Anish Kapoor placed in the garden of the Sabancı University Sakıp Sabancı Museum, both works have adapted into the environment of the museum.
mind map*
Sources
https://publicdelivery.org/lucio-fontana-environments-installations/
