Is Anish Kapoor’s exhibition suitable for a first date?

Downright dirty: Anish Kapoor’s Svayambh, a vast block of red wax moving slowly on rails through five of the main galleries of the Royal Academy
Q: Is Anish Kapoor's sexually charged exhibition a suitable place for a first date?

Esther Walker says...

Get your head in the right place and Anish Kapoor's new exhibition could be the most carnal collection of artwork you will see all year.

Forget peering at Jonathan Yeo's porn-mag collages to make out the individual rude bits, or staggering back in horror at Jake and Dinos Chapman's scary penis-nose sculptures; enter the Royal Academy in the right state of mind and you'll be as randy as a Victorian gent who's caught sight of a piano leg. But then, all art seems to end up being about sex — or oppression.

I think the art world could do with more expressions of the humdrum. How I long to see an exhibition where the works have titles like Lost Car Keys (2005) or Anguish! No More Loo Paper (2008).

Anyway, with Kapoor it all seems mostly about sex. The representation of a pregnant belly (When I Am Pregnant) swells into the thin air of the first gallery halfway up the wall, a symbol of fertility and a reminder of the act. It gets more explicit: Shooting into the Corner was first shown in Vienna, the city in which Freud introduced psychoanalysis to the world.

He would have had a field day with this, a cannon that shoots blobs of red wax at a white wall, in a symbolic act of violence that you stand idly by and watch. It is a comment on society's response to rape, or female degradation or something (and to think I nearly did an A-level in art history).

All I know is: it's rude. And Svayambh is downright dirty — a vast block of the omnipresent red wax moving infinitesimally slowly, on rails, through five of the main galleries. As it squeezes through the Academy's dainty arches it leaves sloppy red gunk all over the arch and the floor. I mean, a large, red, springy-looking long thing squeezing wetly through delicate openings?

You might as well be at a live sex show Of course, you would never, ever take a date here. Not because you'd be so overwhelmed with lust that you'd rip each other's clothes off in Green Park, or so appalled that you'll get no more than a peck on the cheek, but because only pretentious creeps suggest dates to art exhibitions. Go out to dinner; leave the controversial exhibitions for when you've run out of conversation.

Nirpal Dhaliwal says...

Modern art makes for a notoriously difficult dating scenario in the early stages of a relationship. Nothing is more likely to reveal and amplify any hint of dim-wittedness or dilettantism in either of you than contemplating the conceptual work of a great artist. Hearing someone ignorantly dismiss a work of genius or mouth pretentious platitudes and prattle inanely in the hope of seeming clever is enough to make you want to dump them on the spot and explore the gallery for more intelligent company.

Luckily, Anish Kapoor's retrospective is about as viewer-friendly as an exhibition of radical modern art can be. It's witty, colourful, awesome in scale and enormously engaging and interactive.

I've never spoken to more complete strangers in a gallery before, as visitors openly shared their delight, excitement and bemusement with each other. Grown adults returned to infancy as they pondered themselves in a room of his beautifully cast steel mirrors, gurning at themselves with no awareness of the people gathering behind (who couldn't be seen in reflection) giggling at the silliness.

If ever there's an artist whose work is ideal first-date material, it's Anish Kapoor. The cleverness and humour of his work — such as the pregnant bulge in the wall, or the vast slab of meaty red wax that travels by rail at a snail's pace through the building — provide lots of laughs and conversation points. Only a pair of utter dullards would be lost for words having seen this show together — and then they'd probably live happily ever after as soulmates, suited by their unique shared stupidity.

And if you're feeling shy, there are several pieces that just command awe-struck silence. You won't feel pressured to say a thing as you stand before an immense yellow void that Kapoor has created, looking like a tunnel into nirvana. Much of his work reminded me of being on LSD in my teens, and had me locked into stupefied amazement. It's so full of youthful fun, it wouldn't be a surprise if you both ended up having a snogathon in a bus shelter afterwards.

This is the sort of exhibition where couples fall in love with each other. If two people are ever going to open up and connect, it'll happen in the presence of art like this or not at all.

Anish Kapoor's exhibition runs until 11 December at the Royal Academy of Arts, Burlington House, Piccadilly, W1. Tickets are £12 full price, £8 students. To book call 0844 209 1919 or visit www.royalacademy.org

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in