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Between Earth and Sky (2006) 28'
A celebration of Anish Kapoor's Cloud Gate
Orchestration: 3(pic,afl)3(ca)3(bcl)2+cbn/4331/5perc/hp.cel(pf)/str
Commissioned by: the BBC Symphony Orchestra
Dedicated to: Anish Kapoor
Availability: Published by Novello & Co., London
First performance: 24 November 2006
Hammersmith Town Hall, London
BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Alexander Rumpf
Cloud Gate is British artist Anish Kapoor's first public outdoor work installed in the United States. The 110-ton elliptical sculpture is forged of a seamless series of highly polished stainless steel plates, which reflect the city's famous skyline and the clouds above. A 12-foot-high arch provides a "gate" to the concave chamber beneath the sculpture, inviting visitors to touch its mirror-like surface and see their image reflected back from a variety of perspectives.
Inspired by liquid mercury, the sculpture is among the largest of its kind in the world, measuring 66-feet long by 33-feet high.
What I wanted to do in Millennium Park is make something that would engage the Chicago skyline…so that one will see the clouds kind of floating in, with those very tall buildings reflected in the work. And then, since it is in the form of a gate, the participant, the viewer, will be able to enter into this very deep chamber that does, in a way, the same thing to one's reflection as the exterior of the piece is doing to the reflection of the city around.
- Anish Kapoor
". . . The main event was the premiere of Between Earth and Sky by the locally resident composer Param Vir, a response to the joyful luminosity of Anish Kapoor's giant Cloud Gate sculpture in Millennium Park, Chicago.
"Vir's exuberant sound sculpture conjures up its own metallic sheen. In five movements of around five minutes each, the music moves from stillness via the fluidity of slow glissandi towards a hypnotic climax. Even in quiet, rapturous reflection at the end, the music is held in place by a structural backbone that suggests fruitful engagement with the work of Kapoor." - John Allison, Sunday Telegraph, 03/12/2006
LINKS: Anish Kapoor