Anish Kapoor, the British elemental sculptor who you may know from such public sculptures as the Bean in Chicago, was the artistic director of the Brighton Festival this year. Which gave him the opportunity he'd been waiting for "for a long time," to create a gigantic, blood-red sculpture of a chopped up female martyr.
Those two mounds of red rock in the old municipal bus depot, then, would be the breasts. And that pit there in the middle, that is the "Womb Pit." And those craggy things there on the left are the legs. And all together, they make Dismemberment of Jeanne d'Arc.
Never mind that Jeanne d'Arc was a virgin famous for dressing as a man before she was burned at the stake for defeating the British. I'm sure it all made sense at the time. The Brighton Festival ended May 24th.
Controversy? What controversy?Anish Kapoor's journey into blood, guts and controversy [guardian via c-monster]
Kapoor, realizing the idea he saw in his head had translated rather badly, could be seen wandering the Brighton streets with head in hands lammenting, "what WAS I thinking"?