"Wax Lyrical (Anish Kapoor, Svayambh installation at Muse des Beaux Artes Nantes)", 

Frame Magazine № 59, 2007: 55

 

Aristotle knew it as early as the fourth century BC: art is a form of therapy. Small surprise, then,

that artists rebel not only within the confines of their work. More and more often, they refuse to

nestle comfortably in the space in which that work is exhibited.

A particularly effective collision between museum interior and art installation could be witnessed

recently at the Muse des Beaux Arts in Nantes. From June to September, the museums entire

ground floor was occupied by Svayambh, a purposely mismatching installation by British sculptor

Anish Kapoor. Known for his monumental vocabulary, Kapoor filled the exhibition space with a

gigantic block of red wax. The monolith was transported by a flat-bed wagon along rails set 150 cm

above the floor. Interminably traversing the 45-m-long rails at a snails pace of 6 mm per second,

the block slowly wriggled its way through the courtyards too-narrow arches over and over again.

As a result, the piece not only blemished the stark-white pillars to its left and right with blood-red

cargo strips, but also sustained damage to its surface, as continuous clashes gradually wore the

wax away.

     

According to curator Jean de Loisy, this painful but inexorable advance can be read as a magnificent

allegory of the museums main themes: memory and history. Svayambh Sanskrit for shaped by

its own energy also illustrates just what art does: refusing to blend in harmoniously, it resists its

surroundings and imperturbably sticks to a demonstration of its own dynamism.

Words Ellen Rutten

Photos Ccile Clos