Perfect egg shape
Untitled is a ‘real sculpture’, a shape liberated from a piece of rock. The rough, unfinished exterior still bears the marks of the drill used to extract the stone. The back of the work is smooth. At the front, the sculpture opens into an oval interior space, in which a perfect egg shape is revealed. It is not possible to visually determine the precise depth to which the stone has been hollowed out.
Weightlessness
The transparency of the material and the light showing through from the rear only suggest a possible depth. It is also impossible to see whether the egg shape is touching the hollowed out space. It seems to float in its shrine of translucent alabaster. The illusion of weightlessness is enhanced by the perfect finish of the 'inner space' of the sculpture, giving the 400 kilogram stone something almost immaterial.
Emptiness according to Anish Kapoor
Untitled is part of a series of works in stone, which Kapoor began in the late 1980s. As in many of his works, the concept of the void, hollow or empty space also plays a role here. For Kapoor, the empty space is by no means ‘empty’, but conveys the unknown and intangible: ‘The void is not silent. I have always thought of it more as a transitional space, an in-between space’.
The acquisition of Untitled was made possible thanks to a generous donation from the Vereniging Rembrandt (thanks in part to its Titus Fund, its Hendrickje Fund and its A. Quist-Rütter Fund). In addition to this support, the museum has also made use of the regular contribution from the VriendenLoterij.