
Here we go again, with my neediest feature on my little ‘ole blog, “Book I Want, Do Not Have, Can Not Afford”. This weeks installment is the gorgeous tome from Phaidon, a monograph on the inimitable Anish Kapoor. Even if Kapoor wasn’t an all-time fave, the gorgeous ombre cover is a work of art in itself. If you break it down, $95 for 528 pages isn’t too bad, but when I break it down, I also like paying my electricity bill so the food in my refrigerator doesn’t go bad. However, reading the description isn’t helping with my trigger happy buying finger:
Anish Kapoor’s sculptures are as mysterious as they are beautiful. Although they employ a wide range of traditional and non-traditional materials, from alabaster to polished steel to vaseline, their real subject is often immaterial and ungraspable: a chasm, a reflection, a column of air. Kapoor belongs to a generation of British sculptors (Tony Cragg, Richard Deacon, Antony Gormley) who revived sculpture by injecting it with new vitality, even playfulness, in the wake of Minimalism. It should come as no surprise, then, that he is one of the best-loved artists working today, the recipient of numerous international awards (including the Turner Prize) and the creative force behind some of the most popular public sculptures in contemporary art, including Marsyas in the Tate Modern Turbine Hall (2002) and Cloud Gate in Chicago’s Millennium Park (2004). This generously illustrated volume includes hundreds of artworks spanning Kapoor’s long and celebrated career, as well as perceptive new essays by David Anfam and Johanna Burton and an insightful interview by Donna De Salvo.
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June 29, 2010, 10:00am