Anish Kapoor

Photo: Anish Kapoor

Concepts for the Guggenheim, NYC

From the NYTimes:

Anish Kapoor
London

Mr. Kapoor, the sculptor, who currently has a huge steel installation on view at the museum, proposed what he called a “smoke event,” a bright red plume that would be released from a smoke machine at the bottom of the rotunda and travel upward. “Much of my work results in an ephemeral moment,” he said.

The key to the plan, he added, was recognizing that Wright’s void is not really a void. “It’s never an empty volume,” Mr. Kapoor said. “It’s always active, and your body is always active in it.” The inherent energy of the space, he said, calls for a “very playful” response.

Unlike some of the submissions Mr. Kapoor’s is “perfectly doable,” he said. “We can have an extraction point at the top of the atrium that controls the movement of the air in the space. The smoke doesn’t just dissipate. You can get it to move very slowly.”