The pomposity’s still there, but so are moments of magic
Sculpture Anish Kapoor Houghton Hall and Gardens, Norfolk
Monoliths can act like divas – as though you owe them your scrutiny. They often stand in isolation against an expanse of land or sky, and are usually larger than human scale – meaning the spectator is there to feel small. A monolithic artwork, then, is tricky to craft. “Sublime” can come off pompous in a different light.
Enter Anish Kapoor. At Houghton Hall in Norfolk, 13 abstract sculptures in various stones are spread throughout the gardens (with smaller pieces indoors). They cover 40 years of his practice, in which he has represented Britain at the Venice Biennale and won a Turner Prize. Alas, we’re still waiting for the works in Vantablack, the “darkest colour in the universe”, on which he holds, rather prissily, an artistic monopoly.
Unlike some of Kapoor’s other open-air works – say, the Arcelor Mittal Orbit in Stratford, that notorious, appalling tower – the sculptures at Houghton are austere in design. They frame rectangles as channels or apertures, or assemble forms from a handful of curves.
They’re not dissimilar to all manner of objects, from windows to a throne, but never figurative. To the extent that they have faces, they face the hall – a Palladian manor built by Walpole in the 1720s – an orientation that could be a challenge to its grandeur, or a dialogue with a compeer.
That’s the trickiness of sculptures like this: each is embedded in a particular setting, and engages with your particular perception of space. Untitled (2018), a granite work, five metres by two (approximately 16x6ft), is my pick of the 13 here. It’s set in a clearing where four paths meet, and has an undulating, concave face so polished that it reflects you upside down. As I stepped closer, my body swam in the stone. The granite was flecked with leaves and dirt, and raindrops were spattering its sides. It was enigmatic, but serene.
I didn’t expect this from Kapoor, who, in my mind, does “pompous” but rarely “sublime”. For example, you may know Ishi’s Light (2003), in Tate Modern: a three-metre-tall ovoid form into whose centre you can step. Gaze into its reflective interior, painted a red that’s nearly black, and you’re meant to be gazing into the void, though in reality, the piece is a glorified fairground booth: its “void” a daffy mirror. It’s also hard to divine any mysteries when there are people murmuring and waiting their turn.
Conversely, while you’re also reflected in Untitled (2018), this sculpture’s fixity in Houghton’s gardens – open sky, quietude – makes it seem humble and modest instead. Like the best of the pieces here – the angular onyx Untitled (1997) and the curving marble Grace (2004) – it’s better for setting self-importance aside.
Much of the time, this is why Kapoor’s smaller works fade away. There’s an indoor series at Houghton – Wounds and Absent Objects (1996) – which doesn’t bear comparison with the cuboids and curves outside. These mixed-media pieces are set in or upon the walls. They share interests with the larger works: how a void is just a design, but could, according to taste, be read as an opening or a wound; how a mass can be shaped and tapered in order to gesture to weightlessness.
But their scale is their undoing. Although they’re more common, in Kapoor’s oeuvre, than the works in onyx and marble, they’re superseded by those outside. It’s as if these small pieces were always sketches towards proper sculptural weight. It makes them seem shrill and precocious, with too much faith in their own mysteries.
The series upstairs in the Stone Hall is less tedious: eight circular mirrors, painted in hues from magenta to gold, mounted on brackets several feet up. They’re smaller siblings to the Sky Mirror (2018), a silly theatrical piece outdoors, which shows you the sky (inverted as per usual). All these mirrors, I suspect, will be absorbing in nocturnal light, whether electric or natural, more than they were on a leaden afternoon. Not that the public will see (a perk of being the Marquess of Cholmondeley).
The indoor mirrors replace busts of Roman emperors, which have been brought to earth for a while. That could be a dash of wit – Commodus must fall! – but the show is otherwise in tune with Walpole’s majestic stately home. And this is Anish Kapoor, to whom humour rarely occurs. Anyway, that may be for the best. The stateliness suits him well.