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Steve Inskeep - January 5th, 2003
European museum patrons are contemplating the largest sculpture in the world. The sculptor, Anish Kapoor, built a work of art that is slightly larger than a pair of 747 jumbo jets. NPR's Guy Raz visited the creator of a project called "Marsyas."
GUY RAZ reporting:
Anish Kapoor calls his studio a laboratory. He doesn't like everything that comes out of it, but it's a space where he does what he calls `research and development.'
(Soundbite of people working in studio)
RAZ: Inside his South London studio, dozens of assistants work on polishing, sanding and stretching pieces made from fiberglass, steel, marble, glass and, most recently, PVC plastic membrane. It's the medium Kapoor chose for his most ambitious project to date, "Marsyas." It's inspired by the 16th-century Titian painting showing the musician Marsyas being flayed by the god Apollo for daring to play music more beautifully than the god. In 2001, Kapoor was commissioned to mount the installation in the Tate Modern Gallery's gigantic Turbine Hall.
(Soundbite of ambient noise in gallery)
RAZ: The hall is more than 520 feet long and 120 feet high. For months, the artist tried to figure out how to make the best use of the entire space.
Mr. ANISH KAPOOR (Artist): The products that have been made in the space up to now have been made in the last third of the space, and I've always felt that the last third didn't work for me. So I've decided to take on the whole thing; foolishly, I'm sure.
RAZ: The result is a geometric design, something that's impossible to see in full from any angle and something impossible to avoid anywhere at the Tate Modern. It almost suffocates the visitor walking into the museum.
Mr. KAPOOR: There are three steel rings. The first one is leaning into the west wall of the Turbine Hall, the second one lies horizontally above a bridge that bisects the Turbine Hall and the third one is kind of wedged into the building at the east end of the Turbine Hall. And between them is stretched this skin of PVC which is a dark red that's literally pulled against these three rings.
RAZ: At one end, it could be described as a massive trumpet; at the other, a flower. Some critics have even likened it to a womb. But perhaps most significant about "Marsyas" is the impact it's had on the public, like Marden Emmett(ph) and Andrea Nixon(ph), art students who've come to see the piece.
Mr. MARDEN EMMETT (Art Student): I think it's amazing. I like the way it fills the space, you know, 'cause it's such a big room, but it looks bigger than the room.
Ms. ANDREA NIXON (Art Student): It makes us feel so small like an ant or something compared to the size of it. It's that big.
RAZ: The Tate's curator, Donna DeSalvo, has called it one of the great sculptures of the 21st century. She says overseeing the construction of three 10-ton steel rings inside the Turbine Hall and then attaching several tons of PVC skin to the rings was the biggest challenge of her career.
Ms. DONNA DeSALVO (Curator, Tate Modern Gallery): The piece is so completely engaging with the individual that you cannot fully experience this piece unless you really walk around it, through it, under it. You can go to the top of the building and look down onto it. And I think that complete engagement in that way really leaves open a tremendous amount for any individual who comes to see the piece to be involved with.
RAZ: And those who do become involved with the piece are often frustrated because it manipulates the viewers' relationship with the space around them. It's exactly what Anish Kapoor wanted to do. And when it comes to exhibiting his work, he likes to leave his audience guessing.
Mr. KAPOOR: Oh, I've often made objects that don't reveal any sign of how they are made. It's as if they exist in a self-contained way; it's as if they are there without having been made in some way.
RAZ: "Marsyas" shows at the Tate Modern through April of next year. "The Slaying of the Greek Satyr,"(ph) meanwhile, will have to share its mythology with the mythic proportions of Anish Kapoor's "Marsyas." Guy Raz, NPR News, London.
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