Reviews of Anish Kapoor's Olympic sculpture

Commentators and critics assess the London 2012 Olympic Games' monument - a spiralling sculpture designed by Turner Prize-winning artist Anish Kapoor.

Ike Ijeh at the Building blog says the sculpture's biggest problem is its lack of meaning:

"The controversy it has attracted is not particularly surprising. Orbit is big, expensive and modern, all characteristics bound to unleash the most animated armchair histrionics.

"But even worse, it's abstract art and regardless of what the cultural establishment would have us believe, many people find it difficult to relate to abstract art...

"Is it beautiful? No. Is it ugly? Probably. But what this crude, subjective assessment doesn't assess is a far more important question: what does it say?

"And this perhaps is Orbit's biggest flaw and the reason why it has attracted such negative publicity."

Architect Robert Adam said on the Today Programme that the structure will not enter the public consciousness because it's "too clever for its own good":

"It's got to have a simple easy-to-recognise cartoon-like image... This I have a bit of a problem with; to me, it looks like a bit of a jumble."

In the Evening Standard art critic Ben Luke welcomes Mr Kapoor's move away from his usual "emotional" approach:

"But there is, for me, an entirely new, sci-fi feel about the Orbit, owing to the UFO-like viewing platform at its summit. The coils then begin to look like traces of movement - contrails as much as entrails. I've always found Kapoor's monumental works - many, like the Orbit, realised in collaboration with Cecil Balmond - impressive as engineering feats but less absorbing than his smaller sculptures."

In the Independent Jay Merrick points out that Anish Kapoor is not the only one involved in the project:

"The Orbit Tower reflects a meeting of two of the boldest minds in British art. Anish Kapoor's ability to create conceptually astonishing works is proven. Cecil Balmond's role is less well known, but he is the genie whose geometrical alchemy has influenced projects as diverse as Kapoor's 2002 Marsyas installation in Tate Modern, Daniel Libeskind's V&A Spiral, and Toyo Ito's Serpentine Gallery Pavilion."

In his Channel 4 News blog Jon Snow says the structure could be a rare good news story, leading a change in the way the London Olympics is portrayed:

"So the London Olympics is to sport a largely privately funded artwork that is in danger of being both interesting, aesthetically pleasing, and fun. The announcement of the Anish Kapoor tower and the revelation that it will be largely paid for by the Indian steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal raises an alarming new question over the 2012 Olympics.

"Is there a lurking danger that the Olympics are becoming - perish the thought - a good news story? The unveiling of Kapoor's intriguing tower coincides with the discovery that businesses across the UK - from a concrete company in Northern Ireland to a stationery company in the Northern England, and a Scottish company handling an aquatic sports contract - are all benefiting nation-wide from the £9bn expenditure of public moneys on the London games."

Links in full

BBC | Anish Kapoor chosen for landmark 2012 sculpture
BBC | Kapoor Olympic monument 'too clever'
Jon Snow | Channel 4 News | The Horrible Possibility of Good News
Jay Merrick | Independent | A meeting of minds, a monumental vision
Ben Luke | Evening Standard | Now we can inhabit one of Kapoor's signature shapes
Ike Ijeh | Building blog | Bleak and tortured: Kapoor's Orbit is hardly an Olympic ideal