A stellar example by Anish Kapoor, Untitled, 2006, engages two of the artist’s distinctive hallmarks with its concave shape and deep red color to create a mesmerizing experience of space and vision. Mirroring the world through a warped, wine-red lens, the work confronts viewers with a version of themselves that is magnified, stretched and flipped. Spanning over six and a half feet in length and width, this impressive work comes to auction from the collection of Golden Globe Award-winning actor Jim Carrey.
“The interesting thing about a polished surface to me is that when it is really perfect enough something happens– it literally ceases to be physical; it levitates; it does something else,”
—Anish Kapoor
Recessed into the wall, Untitled expands upon Kapoor’s investigation of voids and negative space, which the artist has approached through color, form and material. Consistently exploring the phenomenological relationship between viewers and artworks, the present example can be compared to projects across Kapoor’s oeuvre such as his works using Vantablack. The trademarked material, a military-grade, synthetic coating that absorbs 99.96% of visible light, was utilized in his works at the 2021 Venice Biennale. These black hole-like sculptures provided a similarly elusive experience to that of Untitled. Drawing viewers in, the lacuna at the center of the present example invites ongoing contemplation of presence and absence. Of this interaction, Kapoor has reflected, “one of the things I’ve tumbled into in my process is that kind of uncertainty of what the object is.” The concave structure of Untitled is not immediately registered since the edge of the work sits flush with the wall, prompting viewers to further investigate its true physical character.
“Red is a colour of the earth, it's not a colour of deep space; it's obviously the colour of blood and body. I have a feeling that the darkness that it reveals is a much deeper and darker darkness than that of blue or black”
—Anish Kapoor
The color red heightens the visceral presence of Untitled. For Kapoor red is a symbolic and visually powerful color, as well as the color he most associates with his home country of India. It is recurrent in the artist’s practice from his earliest works in the 1980s through his most recent, however the year 2006, when the present work was made, marked a high point in his use of the color. At that time Kapoor reflected: “Over the last so many years almost everything I have made is red... I have a feeling that the darkness that it reveals is a much deeper and darker darkness than that of blue or black. Turner's idea about colour was that colour was to be viewed in its relation to white, light always towards light. Everything I ever made I think, goes the other way. From red to black. It's the way that red recedes into darkness…That is mysterious. I'm not interested in composition. I want to find absolute conditions. If I make something red it's not red in relation to something else.”In the enigmatic Untitled, depth and surface poetically dissolve amidst its pristine, parabolic red surface.
