2020 Khas

Art and Design

İrem Nalça, 23Nov

For this semester, I’d like to compare two long lasting interests of mine -Michelangelo’s
Atlas Slave and Anish Kapoor’s Adam. On this comparison, both of the artists use the same
material -stone and both of the works has the same quality of incompleteness in different
manners. Meanwhile the first one, Atlas Slave reveals itself by the resistance of the matter,
latter as called Adam -referring to the first man, is composed out of a rectangular raw
sandstone with a pigmented rectangle on it. Atlas Slave is hidden in it’s matter and even it it’s
unintentionally, it shows it’s makers way of thinking. However Adam does not give the
spectator a complete image, it is not possible to grasp the image if the viewer attempts to
relate with the it by the representations of history. It dazzles the eye and swallows it by the
blackness in this case. By relating with those two sculptures, I’ll try to reattach my 2011
sculpture, Spintop.
 Question_ Is it possible to mimic matter itself ? Empty of
narration what can matter bear ? How form itself be a path ?

Anish Kapoor: In a sense, this idea about something partial is also there in the relationship
between the viewer and the work. The work doesn’t exist without the viewer, without
somebody looking at it. To a large extent, all work is incomplete. It’s completed by the person
who is looking at it. That relationship is what makes it whole(…)

It’s too vague to talk about death in these large terms. I think one has to somehow engage with
it in particular—we’re going to, each one of us—but specifically in the work, in these dark
spaces. They are spaces of wonder but they’re also featureless, also, in a sense, nonexistent. It’s
the idea of making a sculpture that is actually not sculpture, just a hole in space that’s a non-
object, a non-physical thing. It’s also futile because it’s not possible. Grappling continually with
this impossible thing seems to me to be a direct parallel for any ideas about God. It’s totally
intangible. One can’t illustrate it, make it, or have it be. One can only remotely refer to it. I
think that’s worthy. That’s the stuff, for me, art ought to be made of. And that’s why it will
always be incomplete. It’s impossible to complete.(…)

Michelangelo_ Atlas Slave, also called Bound, incomplete sculpture of Michelangelo, 277cm tall
marble statue of prisoners to adorn the tomb of pope Julius II. Atlas; the proverbial ancient
Titan who held up the world on his shoulders. The statues have been interpreted in numerous
ways. Seeing them, in their different stages of completion, they bring to mind the immense
strength of the creative concept as they seem to be trying to free themselves from the bondage
as well as the sheer weight of the marble. There are claims that Michelangelo left them
incomplete deliberately in order to depict the eternal struggle of man to free himself from his
material trappings.

Here we can witness a particular way of carving the stone which bears thought, artist’s way of
thinking behind it. Michelangelo’s brief was only to chip and tweak the extra matter in order
to reveal what was therein. It might be the first piece after cave paintings that gives us a sense
of time, performativity and uncertainty. By saying this, I mean artistic instinct can be seen
through this piece, despite it’s era, through his commitment to his work as a craftsman. His
own idea overcame his personality and finished itself without Michelangelo’s own will.