The Armchair Traveller

One thing I love about living in London is having access to The Royal Academy of Arts. It is one of my favourite galleries in this city for its interesting and varied exhibitions. In the two years I have lived here I have seen the Pre-Raphaelite art of J W Waterhouse, the beautiful Japanese woodblock prints of Kuniyoshi, art  from the Byzantine era, French and Russian masterpieces from the Russian National Museums, the art of the French Impressionists, and of course the annual Summer Exhibition which has contemporary works by established and amateur artists from all over the world.

Their current exhibition would have to be my favourite show so far, it is an exhibition of works by one of my favourite Contemporary artists – Anish Kapoor.

Kapoor is an interesting artist whose works are so simple and yet so complex. From the first moment you come across one of his works you are struck by the sensory experience that they present. When arriving in the Royal Academy courtyard you are greeted by large sliver balls balancing on top of one another as though they are floating up into the sky. The silver surface reflects everything around it and since the surface is curved everything reflected back is distorted. I spent a long time standing in front of this work trying to decide how heavy these balls were, they look light as air the way they rise up into the sky and yet I got the impression they are incredibly heavy. How are they held in place? Will a good gust of wind send them flying or will they hold strong? At night they reflect the world differently to during the day, this work is fun. That is what I like about Kapoor’s art, it is accessible to everyone and it is always an experience, the very nature of his work forces you to interact with it.

This exhibition at the Royal Academy has been incredibly successful for how it has let Kapoor’s work speak for itself. One thing I noticed when I entered the exhibition was that there were no labels on the walls with long detailed descriptions or thematic explanations about what you saw in each room. The exhibition was spread out over many different rooms each offering a new and interesting experience. There was a room filled with reflective works which made you feel like you were in the crazy mirror maze of an amusement park. There were people in front of all the different works seeing different things, I was amazed to see one thing in the work in front of me and then when I turned back to look at it again from a different part of the room I saw something completely different – wonderful!

Another room was full of sculptures that just looked like they had been dumped on the floor and not set up properly yet. Each work was sitting on a packing crate and to get to the next room you had to navigate the maze of works in this room by stepping around things and over things, forcing you to come close to works. There was no set way across the room so everyone could tackle it any way they wanted and have a completely different experience.

There was one wall which looked like it had been painted yellow and when you went towards it you realised that it was not a flat wall at all but curved in towards the centre and went in quite deep. My favourite was a wall that appeared to be pregnant! The wall was completely white and there was this bulge which seemed to come out of nowhere off to the side, so funny! My friend said it took her ages to work out why people were staring at a white wall because from where she was standing the wall looked completely flat!!

There was one work in the exhibition which was both a visual and hearing experience. A giant cannon sat in one room and was pointed towards another room. Once every half an hour a gallery attendant would load a giant pallet of wax into the cannon and fire it. The bang could be heard from every corner of the gallery. In the time I was in the exhibition I heard the cannon fire at least 3 times and every time it made me jump!

The aftermath of the explosion was a red waxy mess spewing forth out of the other room. Each wax pallet weighs 20 pounds and when fired, travels at 50 miles per hour. By the end of the exhibition in December there should be about 30 tonnes of wax in that room! Not something I would want to clean up!

The wax is fascinating as well, it looks like solid candle wax but it also looks soft and squishy – I would have loved to have gone up and stuck my hand in it to find out what it is like, but unfortunately this was one work which was roped off for people’s safety (and probably because they wanted to minimise the red staining to the rest of the building!)

All in all this entire exhibition was remarkable. I recommend anyone who has the opportunity to experience the art of Anish Kapoor to make the most of it and enjoy it.

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