DOI
https://doi.org/10.25772/2EEH-0Z95
Defense Date
2013
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Department
Art History
First Advisor
Robert Hobbs
Abstract
This study intends to investigate British artist Anish Kapoor’s stylistic formation in relationship to globalization, positing its history as a multiplicity, comprised of several competing localisms, including: minimalism; the traditions of modern painting; and the artist’s own personal diasporic narrative. It will demonstrate how Kapoor is a transgressive global artist, concerned not only with rethinking the longstanding question of artistic form, but also with the enduring process central to the cultural formation of subjects. Overall, this thesis will propose that Kapoor’s art in particular can be comprehended by the special liminal position it occupies between such polarities as modern and postmodern art, painting and sculpture, East and West, national and trans-national, and local and global. By transgressing the borders that demarcate these discourses, Kapoor’s art enters an in-between state; through both formal and thematic strategies, his sculptural forms orchestrate viewers so they are able to move beyond distinct, fixed, and stabile meanings and view the works as eminently open to the different perspectives and radically diverse discourses they engage, making them truly global works of art.
Rights
© The Author
Is Part Of
VCU University Archives
Is Part Of
VCU Theses and Dissertations
Date of Submission
May 2013