Turning the World Inside Out 1995

Anish Kapoor made this polished sculpture called Turning the World Inside Out, and that's exactly what it does to the space around it. The first thing you notice is the surface, how everything gets pulled into it. It feels solid but it’s all reflection, all light. I mean, talk about materiality! Kapoor takes this cold, hard steel and makes it flow. It’s so smooth, so seamless, it's like a liquid that’s been frozen mid-pour, capturing all the surrounding chaos of the gallery in its surface. The way it plays with convexity and concavity messes with your perception. It makes me think of other artists who work with reflection and space, like Robert Smithson or even some of the minimalist sculptors, but Kapoor's is something else. It is all about turning space inside out, playing with how we see, how we experience the world. It's a reminder that art isn't just about what's there, but about how we see what's there.