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Took myself off to Tate Modern this afternoon to have a look at Anish Kapoor's Marsyas, which now fills the turbine hall, gloriously! Hundreds of feet of blood red plastic stretched taut over three great, convolvular trumpets. It's bloody impressive but I wondered if I should be feeling more than awe at the magnificent scale of the thing. Bigger span than the wings of Gormley's Angel of the North.
In an interview I read through the week in the good old Guardian, Kapoor was happy to talk about all sorts but seemed reluctant to talk about the size of the piece specifically or the likely price when it comes time to market it further. This makes me wonder about the theme of hubris which connects directly with the Titian painting of The Flaying of Marsyas that, it appears, inspired the work.
I've encountered before the gruesome myth of Marsyas, the satyr, who challenged Apollo, the god of music, to a contest on the lute. He lost and Apollo punished his arrogance by flaying the satyr alive. Bit harsh, that, but they were a law unto themselves those old Greek deities.
The Titian painting captures the moment when the flaying is about to start. Integument still intact and bloodless, although the poor, presumptuous satyr is suspended upside down and ready.
Kapoor's work is blood red and there's the impression of hide stretched and ready for tanning about the connective sinews in deep red, which makes the whole physical process of the flaying seem more cruel and immediate than the painting. And the glorious expanse, too huge to take in without doing some legwork, impossible to see the whole simultaneously in the turbine hall's huuuuge space, has the excess to evoke the fundamental of the myth.
Not easy to capture its essence in a photograph. The experience of the piece is quite different from various vantage points too, depending upon whether you're upstairs and about to be swallowed by the middle flute or standing outside of the work, looking on from either end. Verrry interesting.
Wonder how the gods will punish Kapoor for his hubris? |
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