The highly anticipated 59th Venice Biennale, which has been officially opened to the public a few days ago, in addition to the one-year postponement due to the epidemic, the "unprecedented" majority of participating artists are women, which also makes it extremely special.
Anish Kapoor
For the famous British artist Anish Kapoor, this year's Venice Biennale is also of great significance – among the few male artists, the art magnate is arguably one of the best: he has two large solo exhibitions at the Accademia Gallery and Manfreen Palace. Of the two exhibitions, none other has attracted much attention than those created by Kapoor painted on his patented Vantaa Black – literally the "darkest" artwork in human history to appear at the Venice Biennale.
Kapoor's work at the Venice Biennale
In both large solo exhibitions, the Accademia Gallery of Venice hosts a solo retrospective by Kapoor, the venue's first solo exhibition for a British artist and a symbol of extremely high treatment, while The Manfren Palace was recently bought by the Capoor Foundation as the headquarters of the artist's work in Europe.
The 68-year-old Kapoor is known for his work with vivid colors and strong visual impact. At the 2021 Chengdu Biennale, which is still on display, there are also two of his mirror installations, which attract a large number of audiences to stop and enjoy every day. This feature is also continued in his works presented at the Venice Biennale: blood-red wax patches rolling down next to cannons, resins and pigments piled together like dappled flesh... It looks like a bloody mess.
Kapoor's work at the Venice Biennale
At the same time, soft white and extreme black are also Kapoor's favorite colors. The "blackest" work on display this time uses a special material "Vantablack" developed by a British company in 2014. This material is composed of millions of nanoscale tiny carbon tubes, a large number of tiny carbon tubes can absorb up to 99.965% of the visible light on them, thus becoming a tangible "black hole".
From a certain point of view, this magical high-tech material can achieve the "dimensionality reduction" effect described by Liu Cixin in the science fiction novel "Three-Body"--covering it on the uneven three-dimensional sculpture, because there is no reflection of any light, the object looks like a black "plane", invisibly from "three-dimensional" to "two-dimensional".
Kapoor's work based on "Vantaa Black" paint
It is reported that the original intention of this material was to be used as a stealth paint for military purposes, but Kapoor was greatly excited when he learned the news. He said "Vantaa Black" had an unreal effect, and that he had "always been attracted to unusual materials." So he quickly contacted the company and bought the exclusive use of VantaaHei in the field of art at a high price—that is, no other artist except Kapoor himself could use this material for artistic creation.
This near-monopoly approach has caused resentment among many artists, especially young artists. Portrait painter Christian Fore said: "I have never heard that an artist can monopolize a material, and exclusive use of pure black pigment is an unprecedented thing. Another young artist, Stewart Sampour, has created a series of works to fight back, including creating the "pinkest pink" powder to sell on its website and specifying that Kapoor's purchase is strictly prohibited.
Kapoor disagreed with these reactions, and in an interview before the opening of the Venice Biennale, he specifically reiterated that "Vantaa Black" is not a color, but a sophisticated, complex technology. He was granted a technology patent, not a color patent.
Red Star News reporter Qiao Xueyang
Edited by Li Jie