Anish Kapoor: Making Emptiness

by Homi K. Bhabha

Inability to tolerate empty space limits the amount of space available. W.R. Bion, Cogitations1 The important thing is that at a given moment one arrives at illusion. Around it one finds a sensitive spot, a lesion, a locus of pain, a point of reversal of the whole of history, insofar as it is the history of art and insofar as we are implicated in it that point concerns the notion that the illusion of space is different from the creation of emptiness. !ac"ues #acan, Ethics$ Is it my role as an artist to say something, to e%press, to be e%pressive& I thin' it(s my role as an artist to bring to e%pression, it(s not my role to be e%pressive. I(ve got nothing particular to say, I don(t have any message to give anyone. But it is my role to bring to e%pression, let(s say, to define means that allow phenomenological and other perceptions which one might use, one might wor' with, and then move towards a poetic e%istence. Anish )apoor* The True Sign of Emptiness It may be the most valuable insight into Anish )apoor(s wor' to suggest that the presence of an ob+ect can render a space more empty than mere vacancy could ever envisage. This "uality of an e%cessive, engendering emptiness is everywhere visible in his wor'. It is a process that he associates with the contrary, yet correlated, forces of withdrawal and disclosure, (drawing in towards a depth that mar's and ma'es a new surface, that 'eeps open the whole issue of the surface, the surface tension(., -onsider, for instance, the figure of Adam. A cavity set so deeply in a stone that its pigmented pitch defies the depth of the roc', and floats weightless to the surface. .uddenly the stone has shifted its mass leaving only its shadow, ma'ing more ground than it stands on. /r, wal' around the silent swelling of When I am Pregnant. Trace the shape as it grows obli"uely out of the wall and then suddenly when you stand in front of it, face to face, it is there no longer only a luminous aureole remains to return you to the memory of fullness, as the wall turns transparent, from white to light. The monumental and noumenal address of )apoor(s wor' should not obscure these uncanny e%periences which suggest that his vast tolerance of empty space e%pands the space available into another ongoing disruption of (time(. Too often we are summoned by critics to stand before )apoor(s voids, bearing witness to those modernist virtues of verticality that Rosalind )rauss +ustly describes as the process by which (apparent disorder0 1is2 necessarily reabsorbed in the very fact of being bounded(.3 But the e%pansion of available space 4 the ma'ing of emptiness 4 never fails to register a lateral movement, a transitional tremor, that disorders the boundedness of the void. The void slips sideways from the grasp of frame and figure its visual apprehension as contained absence, made whole and present in the eye of the viewer, is attenuated. The enigma of the void is now discernible in the intimation of a movement that obliterates perceptual space and supplements it with a disruptive, dis+unctive time through which the spectator must pass 4 (reverse, affirm, negate(. It is this transitional temporality, effected by the e%pansion of emptiness, that )apoor see's to inscribe into the very passage of time and movement that ma'es the e%hibition the phenomenological e%perience that it is. The Double Mirror wor's provide a motif of the material techni"ues and the metaphorical possibilities of (ma'ing emptiness(, which is the sub+ect of this essay. #isten to the artist5

0 The curious thing about double mirrors, concave mirrors, when you put them together, is that they don(t give you an infinite repeatability0 . What interests me is that from certain angles and positions there(s no image at all in either mirror. I(m very interested in the way they that they seem to reverse, affirm and then negate0 . To place the viewer with these blinding mirrors in this narrow passage0 this transitional space0 somehow at an obli"ue angle to the mirrors( (visuality( or the viewer(s visibility is to be caught in the contest of mirrors. They cancel each other out in one moment and yet demanding that they be loo'ed at from a strange, obli"ue perspective0 .Where time and space are seemingly absent, at a standstill0, in that narrow passage, parado%ically there is a restlessness, an unease0 . As I said before, a transitional movement 4 reverse, affirm, negate.6 The tactile e%perience of transition is caught in the virtual space in between the double mirrors. The perspectival distance between sub+ect and ob+ect, or the mimetic balance between the mirror and its reflection, are replaced by a movement of erasure and inversion 4 (reverse, affirm, negate(. It is as if the possibility of pictoriality or image7ma'ing, associated with visual pleasure, has been unsettled to reveal emptiness, dar'ness, blan'ness, the blind spot. 8owever the purpose of )apoor(s wor' is not to represent the mediation of light and dar'ness, or negative and positive space, in a dialectical relationship in which emptiness will travel through the dar'ening mirror to assume the plenitude of presence. )apoor stays with the state of transitionality, allowing it the time and space to develop its own affects 4 an%iety, unease, restlessness 4 so that viewing becomes part of the process of ma'ing the wor' itself. The spectator(s relation to the ob+ect involves a process of "uestioning the underlying conditions through which the wor' becomes a visual e%perience in the first place5 how can the conceptual void be made visible& how can the perceptual void be spo'en& These "uestions remain true to )apoor(s purpose. 9ot true in the mimetic sense of reflecting the (real( or revealing the perfection of aesthetic form. True, however, in the way of the homo faber whose eyes stay true to the process of fabrication 4 straightening, levelling, smoothing, sharpening 4 in order to move beyond the measure of the (ma'er( or the material, so that (a man(s products may be more( 4 and not only more lasting 4 (than he is himself(.: )apoor(s sense of ma'ing the void more empty is the process by which the artist(s reach e%ceeds cloying grasp of (personality(, refusing to allow the source of the wor' 4 its originality or identity 4 to rest in the shallow signature of style. .tyle, at first, celebrates the uni"ueness of ("uality(, the singular challenge of the author or artist but once established as a (name( or a signature, value becomes ever more consensual and commodified. To treat the void as style is to read its emptiness as no more than a plea for the pictorial what -lement ;reenberg has defined as (the loo' of the void(<5 (The geometrical and modular simplicity may announce and signify the furthest7out, but the fact that the signals are understood for what they want to mean betrays them artistically05 wraiths of the picture rectangle and the -ubist grid haunt their wor's, as'ing to be filled out 4 and filled out they are, with light7and7dar' drawing.(= In turning away from the loo' of the void, we suggest, instead, that the truly made void is fabricated from the (sign of emptiness(. To spea' of the (sign( of a wor' is not to substitute theory for practice, nor to consign the visual e%perience of art to the language of writing. The (sign of emptiness( can neither be fi%ed as form, nor preserved as an image or an idea. It is (true( to the ma'ing and the materiality of the ob+ect but after its own fashion. It emerges, in ;reenberg(s terms, when the (signals( of figuration or techni"ue are prevented from articulating what they want to mean when the void(s plea to have its vacancy filled is resisted when the signature of style can no longer name or claim to control the aesthetic logic of the wor'. )apoor(s voids, standing before us as sculpted ob+ects 4 blue powders turning into the colour of far, fetching distance 4 are distinct from his creation of emptiness.

If you thin' that you have seen (emptiness( as that hole at the heart of the material(s mass, surrounded by a planished facade, then thin' again. To see the void as a contained negative space indented in the material is only to apprehend its physicality. To figure the depth of the void as providing a perspectival absence within the frame or the genre is to linger too long with the pedagogy of manufacture or the technology of taste. The practice of (true ma'ing( occurs only when the material and the non7material tangentially touch. The truly made thing pushes us decisively beyond the illustrational, the (loo' of the void( the sign of emptiness e%pands the limits of available space. )apoor says5 I believe very deeply that wor's of art, or let(s say things in the world, not +ust wor's of art, can be truly made. If they are truly made, in the sense of possessing themselves, then they are beautiful. If they are not truly made, the eye is a very "uic' and very good instrument0 . The idea of the truly made does not only have to do with truth. It has to do with the meeting of material and non7material0 . 1A2 thing e%ists in the world because it has mythological, psychological and philosophical coherence. That is when a thing is truly made0 The reason I seem to return to the same material possibilities is, I thin', because the polished surface is in fact not different from the pigment. In the end it has to do with issues that lie below the material, with the fact that materials are there to ma'e something else possible that is what interests me. The things that are available, or the non7physical things, the intellectual things, the possibilities that are available through the material0 . The material changes0 . The method of manufacture is not the point. The "uestion is whether or not an ob+ect is well and truly made.1> To get to the heart of )apoor(s thin'ing and ma'ing we must register the difference between physicality of void space, and truly made emptiness. #et us use 8eidegger(s beautiful parable of the +ug for these purposes.11 What does the potter ma'e when he shapes the +ug& /f what material is the +ug made& The potter forms the sides and bottom of the +ug in clay to provide the means for it to stand, to be vertical to ma'e the +ug a holding vessel, however, he has to shape the void. (?rom start to finish the potter ta'es hold of the impalpable void and brings it forth as the container in the shape of a containing vessel0 . The vessel(s thingness does not lie at all in the material of which it consists, but in the void that it holds.( If I might coin a term suited to emptiness, then I would say that in the (be7holding( of the +ug, there is no simply discernible outside @clayA nor a penetrative inside @voidA, no easily distinguishable negative and positive spaces. These apparent binary oppositions bear a liminal relation to each other. They are held together with the sheer, glancing force with which the surface of a sheet of air intersects the line of the sea(s horiBon, the elements spliced, stapled together in a slanted slash of a white sail that stands the pressures of wind and water, +ust precariously out of balance 4 a tense te%tile, holding the void, withstanding the vessel. In that impalpable moment or movement in which material and non7material touch in the +ug there is the e%ertion of an obli"ue relation of force5 the clay is rooted by gravity to stand, while the void, enlightened by emptiness, becomes empowered to (hold ( air or water. They come together, in this uncanny relationship, by virtue of the difference that holds them apart a contest between surfaces, elements, materials or meanings that con+ures up one, or the other, through a (third( dimension. This is the dimension of doubling and displacement5 the +ug is (double( in the sense that it is no longer a unitary ob+ect but at once a relation through clay @materialA to void @non7materialA. And once we restructure the unity of the +ug in this way, then the standing @materialA and the holding @non7materialA are related through an (otherness(, an alterity, an unabsolvable difference. The truly made wor' find its balance in the fragility of vacillation. It is the recognition of this ambivalent movement of force, this (doubleness( or (otherness( of the literal and the metaphoric, the empty and the void, their side7 by7side pro%imity, that inhabits )apoor(s wor'. .uch an articulation through displacement allows us to decipher emptiness as a (sign(, (where we have really an e%teriority of the inward(1$, rather than to pander to the loo' of the void as it signals its need to be fulfilled.

Ghostly Gestures I once saw the sign of emptiness rise from the dar' void. It was a day of rain and dust as A) and I drove into the stoneyard. Cou said, (I want you to see something(, pointing to a shrouded dar' stone, its light blinded by dust @Ghost, )il'enny limestoneA. As we approach the rough7hewn stone, its irregular mass effortlessly, unconsciously awaits our audience. Svyambhuv, the .ans'rit word for the (self7born( aesthetic @as distinct from ru a, the man7made form imposed through human artifice1*A, has been a long preoccupation of yours and, from one angle,Ghost resembles one of those (irregularly shaped protuberances(.1, But then, suddenly, the facade belongs toru a. I am always struc' by the formality of the openings you cut into your stone pieces. Doorways, elongated windows, thresholds, finely finished portals, lintels with raBor7li'e edges, that contrast with the raw halo of encrustation and crenellation, the chemical activity of the ages, around them. The tor"ued, ambivalent movement of the stone is unmista'able5 svyambhuv!ru a, and then, in a flash, ru a!svyambhuv 4 self7madeEman7made and then, in an iterative instant, bac' again, man7madeEself7 made. ?ront and bac' not opposed to each other, but partially turned towards, partly away, from themselves, catching side7long glimpses. A strange diagonal gaBe. The whole stone is caught in a act of torsion5 turning away from an earlier state, emerging from another time, half7glancing away from us, only partly there, obli"uely revealed, a mise"en"sc#ne in transition. Cour formal portals and frames are interruptions, interventions in an ongoing history of the material, not a primal past, but the obli"uity of the present, +ust beyond reach, but not7as7yet the future either. In transition, between the material and the non7material0 as you put it. .tand there, you say, +ust slightly to one side0 I move, at an angle to the stone. I am again puBBled by another aspect of the entrance to the wor' that has now become obli"uely apparent. There is something uncanny about its scale. It is an almost7human opening but not "uite made in the image of man, nor in the dimensions of the divine or the measure of the domestic. The entrance does not embrace you but neither does it evade you5 it places you, across from the stone itself, in a corresponding state of transition, or transitivity, of the truly made 4 not fully humanEnot wholly natural, the passage between stone and a poetic e%istence. /urs, now, is that state of (bewildered calm(, as our loo'ing is ta'en over by an affect of tension and an%iety that 8eidegger associates with the impending disclosure of emptiness, as the wholeness of the stone shrin's bac' or turns bac' and forth, ambivalently, between its double and displaced lives,svyambhuv!ru a. As the one turns to face the other, it encounters a blind spot, the necessary void5 (it discloses these beings in their full but concealed strangeness as what is radically other 4 with respect to the nothing(.13 And then suddenly 4 with respect to the void 4 in the emptiness that holds the roc', I see the ghost. It doesn(t rise nor does it descend. It does not allow the eye to see' the satisfactions of origin 4 does it come from within& from without& from where& 9or does the ghost lend itself to the fi%ed dimensions of distance and nearness 4 does it live inside& outside& before& behind& As in 8eidegger(s +ug or Brancusi(s Endless Column, (s'y and earth dwell( in the ma'ing of Ghost.16 The light of emptiness that emanates from Ghost, li'e the void in the clay or the wind in the sail, falls obli"uely, across these material dimensions and divisions5 it moves the depth of the stone to the surface, ta'ing the weight off its verticality and holding it, for a moment, in the fine transparency of a film7li'e column. But then as the dar' clouds scud by, the column of light is partially bro'en, shadow pouring into its emptiness with such a dar' presence that it illuminates the deep mirror of the stone. It is, once more, the movement of the material in and through the non7material, the ghost in and out of the stone, that gives the wor' its character5 li'e 8amlet(s father, Ghost wal's the night, wafting us to a more (removed ground(.

On Mo ing Groun! A (removed ground(, .ha'espeare(s phrase, is truly made for the appreciation of )apoor(s wor'. 9ot, however, if it is understood to refer to the pure ground of theory, or to art(s realm of autonomy, the perfectibility of form. But if the phrase is read with an eye to the restless light emitted by Ghost, and the bewildered calm of our response to it, then (a removed ground( ma'es us aware of a gesture that repeats persistently in )apoor(s wor's, whether they are the deeply pigmented wall voids or the "uic'silver underworlds of the stainless steel floor pieces. A sudden disappearance of surface in a deep, dar' hole literally cuts the ground from under our feet the body loses its direction and density the eye hovers, horiBonless, homeless. Fach step we ta'e towards the wor' places us on moving ground each time our gaBe is suspended between a frame, a lip, of fine luminosity surviving +ust above the shadow7line, and then all view is lost vertigo. It is an emptiness more e%treme and e%ploratory than mere vacant or (negative( space can ever accommodate. )apoor(s voids force us to recognise that ma'ing art out of emptiness is not a process of the figuration of absence or presence, the image of the empty or the full. To fulfill its destiny, without pandering to what ;reenberg called (the loo' of the void(, the wor' must repeatedly renounce and restore its density through the sign of emptiness that lives in between those contrastive or contradictory states5 (It is on the basis of this fabricated signifier, this vase, that emptiness and fullness as such enter the world, neither more nor less0 . 1: And such interstitial spaces can only be represented in the movement of "uality and "uantity within the wor'(s representational core which is displaced by a mode of repetition that circulates at its periphery, disturbing the dimensions of negative or affirmative space, the framed and the free, what is inside and outside. This is a comple% thought that addresses )apoor(s own concerns about the true ma'ing of his wor'5 (I seem to be ma'ing the same shape, each time with a different purpose(, he recently wrote to me, echoing his comment to an interviewer in 1==6, (I am doing the same things that I was doing when I first thought that it might be possible to wor' as an artist. .ome interests have deepened, but really the central issues have remained the same.(1< 8ow do we understand the (sameness( of shape in the service of differing purposes& What is the repetition that accompanies the inventions of the void& These "uestions ma'e us reconsider what we understand to be the (identity( of a wor'. Ta'e, for instance, $ntitled, 1==:, a monolith in stainless steel. Its mirror surface does not turn the world upside down as much as it re7assembles it as a whorled vision of shapes and shards, earth and s'y, walls and faces 4 surfaces that blur together in a gestalt that draws everything into the deep inscape of the great steel bo%. And yet the dar'ness of the void is deceptive, its illusion of space "uite elusive. ?or the mirror(s magic reduces both the depth and the weight of the world into a s'in that floats on the surface of the steel, emphasising the nothingness of the ob+ect itself. It is no longer the cavernous (inside( of the piece that signifies the void the creation of emptiness is now, li'e the mirror itself, everywhere and nowhere, as interiority and e%teriority fail to preserve their determining dimensions. If the mirror suc's in, it also spits out 4 it reflects and reflu%es. .uch a reading illustrates the motility embodied in the reflective surface of the mirror and e%emplifies those (non7physical things, the intellectual things, the possibilities that are available through the material(.1= But this gyration of the mirror(s void does not come to terms with the "uestion of repetition of form, the "uestion that )apoor poses in his description of true ma'ing5 why the return to that void shape, the same shape, and its material possibilities& To see the void as a sign of emptiness, circulating through )apoor(s oeuvre, ta'es our en"uiry in a metonymic direction. )apoor(s e%cavations must be read laterally, as hollows that move across materials, from polished surfaces to pigments, functioning li'e punctuation mar's in a narrative process. The artist describes this aspect of voiding5

There is a history in the stone and through this simple device of e%cavating the stone it(s +ust as if a whole narrative se"uence is suddenly there0 . I(m trying to formulate a notion of a resident narrative. I(m not in the business of setting out to reveal, that doesn(t interest me0$> To continue the linguistic metaphor, the (resident narrative( re"uires us to imagine a double inscription5 the void as shape, as physical presence, may remain the (same( but, as the sign of emptiness, that something (other( that animates the material of true ma'ing, it is always different. What repeats in the resident narrative, at the point of e%cavation, is this relationship that shuttles from shape to sign, from the poise of the physical to the restless invention of material. Goving laterally, or diagonally, across from the mirror7void @$ntitled, 1==:A and its metallic vigilance, we are led, retroactively, to another material possibility, the meditative recess of My %ody &our %ody, 1==*. The narrative of repetition leaves an elliptical trace in the wor'. As the viewer enters the obli"ue membrane of pigmented blue, the void spea's of the elusive ob+ect of the body5 the father(s absent body, the mother(s missing body, the lover(s longed for body, my empty body. Then, the wor' shifts, and from the dar'ness of loss there emerges a fold of light and longing a fluctuating form of a rim, a lip, a lid, a limb, a line of life0 a fragile meeting of space and emptiness, and in that ambiguous adoration, the discovery of your body, my body0 I(m very interested in that condition that seems to be abidingly static and at the same time dynamic. It(s hard to name but it(s a condition that I +ust 'now e%ists when it happens0 and it(s there, for instance, in ;host, in Gy Body Cour Body. It(s as if something is ta'ing part as you loo' at it0 . .omething that Richard .erra is doing too. I(m interested to frame that effect5 it(s the effect of an enormous weight0 out of balance. An apparently out7of7balance form.$1 "iagonal #isions What is out of balance must not be confused with a loss of balance. Truly made wor's are apparently out of balance in a sense more profound than any immediate visual e%perience or physical description can convey. ?or what is (out of balance( in form is, ironically, a result of what is out of sight, yet integral, to the transitional, shaping spirit of the material. )apoor(s description of materiality, you will recall, ma'es it "uite clear that (a polished surface is in fact not different from the pigment. In the end it has to do with issues that lie below the material, with the fact that materials are there to ma'e something else ossible0 the non7 physical things, the intellectual things, the possibilities that are available through the material.( Gaterial, then, is li'e living tissue, a contingent and relational medium its transitional powers reside in an on7going temporal process. The process of (ma'ing( does not stop with the manufacture of the ob+ect for it is the ambition of the homo faber to ma'e the wor' that is more than its moment and other than its ma'er. True ma'ing lives on in the invisible, unnamable energy that haunts the double life of the material itself, enabling it to survive beyond what )apoor calls (the end of the process(5 0 at the end of the process0 there occurs0 a very technical thing and very strange thing, all at once0 . It(s the way in which the stone is not stone, the way the stone becomes something else, becomes light, becomes a proposition, becomes a lens0$$ The ceremony of passing through to something else is not the transmission of the (essence( of stone through light or lens, nor is it the epiphany of the stone transcending all material forms. Trueness lies not in what pleases the eye, nor in what passes through the host of the hand. True ma'ing often finds itself in resisting the physical and the transcendental in bringing to e%pression, and 'eeping open, the in7between temporality, that something 4 the strange sublimity of techni"ue 4 that locates the ob+ect in between the static and the dynamic, in a transitional state5

I want to mention another artist, !ac'son Holloc'0 . There(s an e%traordinary way in which the drip paintings are in the process of ma'ing themselves as you loo' at them. As if the all7overness of that continuous play, that continuous depositing, if you li'e, ma'es them be, and feel, as if they are in a flu%, as if they are moving bac'wards and forwards, as if they are ma'ing themselves, as if they are not finite and, of course, I could go on0 I will go on, I thin' it(s really important. Cou 'now how Barnet 9ewman discovered that, as you e%tend the field in the painting, the eye begins to operate in the same way, pulls in and pushes out0 bac' and forth0 side by side0$* If form is out of balance 4 pulling in and pushing out0 bac' and forth 4 is time out of +oint too& The answer lies in that veiled (something( 4 the sign of emptiness, the blind spot 4 that discloses the transitional state of true ma'ing. As we are wafted to a removed ground that moves under our very feet, we cannot access the ob+ect of art without being obliged (as the whole of psychic life is obliged, to encircle it or bypass it in order to conceive it.($, /nce we refuse to fill out the loo' of the void (with wraiths of the picture rectangle and the -ubist grid($3, then, from its emptiness, there emerges a gaBe that can hold together those diverse spatial elements and dis+unctive temporal "ualities that are involved in the performative movement of the wor' 4 that continuous play, the depositing of measure and meaning, the scale of the drip and the synta% of the all7 over. The performance that translates spatial relations into temporal movements empowers art to produce what Richard .erra calls an anti7environment, (the potential to create its own place and space and to wor' in contradiction to the spaces and places where it is created0 to divide or declare its own area.($6 The true void 4 out of balance, caught between one temporality and another 4 becomes such a gathering place that stands in an obli"ue relation to itself and others. As a (diagonal( event it is, at once, a meeting place of modes and meanings, and a site of the contentious struggles of perspective and interpretation. The wor' that follows the diagonal direction is less an ob+ect and more a mise"en"sc#ne 4 an anti7 environment 4 that displays the "uic' change of scene, the rapid transition between the perceptual and the conceptual, those "ualities of attention that move us hither and thither in the e%perience of abstract art. ?or the process by which, in the artist(s words, stone is not about stone, but about something else0 about light0 about a proposition0 is part of a circulatory e%change of difference and similitude, the repetition of the shape and the revision of the sign, that is peculiar to ob+ects in transition. In his famous description of the transitional ob+ect, the psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott suggests that it (symboliBes the union of two now separate things0 at the oint in time and s ace of the initiation of their state of se arateness.($: It is, indeed, by conceiving of a condition for the truly made ob+ect, where space is con+oined and time separate, and then imagining, vice versa, bac' and forth, the confluence of time in a contradiction of space, that we can see how )apoor(s wor' goes beyond the modernist mastery of (pure form( @(coordination, unity, structure5 visible but unseen($<A. Fach transitional moment turns stone into light, void into clay, or the sail into a s'in that holds wind and water, only because, in each case, they are +oined by the fall of a beat, separated by a cut in time, displayed in an out7of7balance form, displaced in a vacillating movement. .uch growth by fluctuation is not an incremental increase in space nor a continuous accumulation of time. The truly made wor' performs the distinction that )apoor ma'es between the didacticism of (e%pression( and the divination of (bringing to e%pression( it opens itself to an e%pansion by emptiness. The void(s agonistic articulation of the out7of7balance with the vacillating, transitional temporality resonates with the psychoanalytic concept of intro+ection5 the process by which the human sub+ect transposes (ob+ects( from the outside to the inside of itself through the passageway of the Inconscious. The emptiness of the void, signifying nothing in itself, occupies an interstitial space a'in to the unconscious, in which the union of two now separate things ta'es place (at the point in time and space of the initiation of their state of separateness(. The Inconscious is an affective "uality of the mind that functions in a way that is notoriously out of balance, articulated in symptoms and symbols and, in its unpunctual displacement of memory and desire, never e%actly on time either. This is 9icholas Abraham(s reading of the activity of intro+ection5

0 intro+ection is defined as the process of including the Inconscious in the ego through ob+ectal contacts0 . By broadening and enriching the ego, intro+ection see's to introduce into it the unconscious, nameless, or repressed0 . Thus it is not at all a matter of intro+ecting the ob+ect, as is all too commonly stated, but of intro+ecting the sum total of the drives, and their vicissitudes as occasioned and mediated by the ob+ect0 intro+ection confers on the ob+ect, and on the analyst, the role of mediation towards the unconscious. Moving bac' and forth between (the narcissistic and the ob+ectal realms(.$= 1my emphasis2 The truly made wor' is thus enriched because it introduces into the e%panded field of the ob+ect, that displaced movement of (thirdness(, the diagonal relation, that inscribes something that remains nameless, that somethingthat moves the material beyond itself, towards the other, surviving at the point of invisibility, sustaining the unthought. This is the strange moment when the technical turns into the affrighted reflu% of the sublime when the drip painting gathers in order to move bac' and forth, and the eye, in the e%tended field, pushes in and out. ?or in true ma'ing, as in the intro+ective process, the identification with the ob+ect is never with the sum of its parts. Its diagonal aspect 4 the agonistic gathering, the conflictual confluence 4 is what emerges as resence it represents the vacillation and ambivalence of the material that can never be stabilised or naturalised in the ob+ecthood of art. #i'e the analyst moves towards the unconscious, the artist of the void mediates our relationship to the emptiness that ensures that the wor' of true ma'ing goes on and on0 . #i'e the incorporative relation, it e%pands by moving bac' and forth between the self7made and the man7made, as the virtues and vicissitudes of the wor' continually emerge, displayed as figure, at one moment, and then displaced in the living performance of art. $istening to the %oun! Fncircling the void, in this indirect and interruptive movement, returns us to the motif of this essay5 the difference between the illusion of space and the creation of emptiness. As #acan suggests, (0 at a given moment one arrives at illusion0 one finds a sensitive spot, a lesion, a locus of pain, a point of reversal0 that point concerns the notion that the illusion of space is different from the creation of emptiness.(*> Cou can see it in ;iacometti(s wal'ing or standing figures, flailing li'e twists of rope, somewhere between aged wraiths and wiBened children. /nce again, we are aware of those uncanny dimensions figured in )apoor(s framed portals, almost7human, somewhat out of balance. )apoor(s stone frontages prefigure a transitional life, neither secular nor sacred and here, in ;iacometti(s figures, we encounter the mar's of transitional being, not7human7enough, and then, suddenly, all7too7human. In the empty space in between stands the figure5 veined and ribbed li'e the relief of a fossil, holding aloft the fragile illusion of a man7shaped space, but only for a moment. Then, in the act of wal'ing or standing, motion and stasis are both unbalanced in the flu% of the sculpture. ?ront and bac' fibrillate, the body turns and twists @recalling the torsion in GhostA, and the image of man leans on air, holding on by a thread. This is the creation of emptiness. The aura of the void produces a spectral shadow of man5 too much emptiness to be invisible, too much absence to be mere vacancy. An aura that gapes rather than glows. An aura that is li'e the sail, aligning the vacancy of air with the efflu% of water, at an obli"ue angle, a stapling of sea and s'y, a wound in the wind. What is it that holds the body in its diagonal disposition when, in )apoor(s words, (0 the body is the stone0 the floor or the space(*1& What staples the flesh to bone, stone, canvas, paper, in its tryst with what is transitional, the fragile frame of true ma'ing& #isten to the void5 The void is not silent. I have always thought of it more and more as a transitional space, an in7between space. It(s very much to do with time. I have always been interested as an artist in how one can somehow loo' again for thatvery first moment of creativity where everything is possible and nothing has

actually happened. It(s a space of becoming0 (something( that dwells in the presence of the wor'0 that allows it or forces it not to be what it states it is in the first instance.*$ In voicing the void, )apoor returns us to the discourse of the diagonal. 8ow does the transitional nature of true ma'ing 4 spatially out of balance, temporally in between 4 relate to the myth of (originality(& I have argued that the shape of the void and the sign of emptiness must be conceived of in a logic of doubling li'e the transitional ob+ect, they are unified at the point in space and time of their separation and differentiation. .uch a mode of representation does not contain, deep within its being, an (ob+ect( that unfolds, in its own time, to reveal its unitary presence. )apoor(s elision of the (first instance( or the (very first moment( does not lead to a final rec'oning in which all will be revealed. In this instance, presentness is not grace, to ta'e liberties with Gichael ?ried(s stri'ing modernist dictum, for there is no promise in the wor' of (a continuous and entire presentness0 a 'ind of instantaneousness0 1because2 at every moment the wor' itself is wholly manifest(.** The (delay( in the presence of the wor' discloses faces, aspects, elements or media that do not metonymically signify some immanent whole, or some complete, though repressed, narrative. The process of delay is diagonal in the sense in which each emergent element or aspect of the ob+ect evolves its specific locus of signification that will not yield to a more general operation or universal description. These localities of representation instigate a process of repetition and revision in between the material and the non7material, so that nothing can be said of the wor' that is true for it as a (whole(. It is the effect of these (performative particularities( to intro+ect associations, meanings and readings into the e%perience and ob+ecthood of the wor' that renders it transitional in the most productive way, by ma'ing it (thin' beyond what it thin's(. This phrase comes from Fmmanuel #Jvinas who developed a notion of (deportation( that resonates usefully with my idea of the transitionality of the truly made wor'. (In its relation to what should be its KintentionalK correlate, 1the ob+ect2 would thus be de orted, not culminating, not arriving at an end, at the finish 1a du fini20 1It2 is the very diachrony of time, non7coincidence, dispossession itself(*, 1my interpolations2. The delay that dwells in the wor' commits us to listening to the void in its moment of deportation, as it passes beyond its intentionality. I once heard such a voice of the void rise from a wound in a wall. A red gash set at an angle in a featureless white wall, (he )ealing of St (homas. The wound gathers li'e a gaping aura, drawing us to it 4 disciple, artist, writer, viewer 4 to witness the ma'ing of a miraculous rebirth, the Resurrection, through the repetition of a shape, the void, each time for a different purpose. What you(ve called a (resident narrative( has both a visual and scriptural resonance. The story of (Doubting Thomas( from the gospel of .t !ohn emphasises the disciple(s scepticism towards the resurrection for (unless I see and touch, I will not believe(. And then, there is -aravaggio(s (he Incredulity of St (homas, where the disciples gather around the re7born body, their eyes fi%ed not on the grace of ;od(s son but on Thomas(s finger deep in the flesh, while the wound, in a strange repetition of the shape of the void, becomes the eye that sees, the flesh that touches, the mouth that spea's !ohn(s words, (Ces it is !esusL 4 and 8e is divineL(.*3 But it is not the ascent of -hrist(s body, the rectitude of belief, or indeed the (truth( of the image that ma'es you place us before this diagonal slash on the wall, this site of spiritual and visual doubt. It is thatsomething else that you are after, that lives below the narrative that something that stirs but will not reveal itself in the first instance, that something that only comes later, on pain of repetition. Cou lead me to the precise position and location of the wound. !ust this red slash, and nothing else, and yet, somehow, the space around it comes alive, ma'ing an e%panded emptiness, beyond the supporting wall, to bear the wound0, I observe.

(That(s because it(s never central(, you say, (and that is very specific. It(s there because of the obli"ue relationship with the body that I(m after. I want to recall the gash in -hrist(s side, that(s not centred, that(s not central0 . It has to be li'e that, at an angle, in order to move from the body to the building and then0 from the "uestion of dwelling to the problem of doubt0 dwelling in doubt0 . Gore than anything else it seemed aesthetically logical, but I cannot for the life of me e%plain why.(*6 That phrase (dwelling in doubt(, when associated with the slanting gash, reminds me of the obli"uity that resides in your concept of creativity, (0 KsomethingK that dwells in the presence of the wor'0 that allows it or forces it not to be what it states it is in the first instance.( Cou lead us through Thomas(s doubt to a 'ind of undecidability, an ambivalence, that lies at the very heart of your wor'. The first moment of creativity must always be loo'ed for again, so that its priority, its purity, its firstness is deferred. It has to be found again, restored through repetition, reinscribed in another time and place if it is to come alive in the first place. It is this power of delay, this ethic of doubt about what it means to see, to touch to believe, to ma'e, that gives such force to the red gash on the white wall named after .t Thomas. ?or the doubt that dwells in the wor' forces it to postpone its presence, to delay its disclosure, not to be what it says in the first instance. What is the lesson of the lesion in -hrist(s side& What is the meaning of the wound in the wall& Herhaps, the ma'ing of art and the creation of belief share such lagged temporalities 4 they are narratives of a similar shape, but with different human purposes. ?or Thomas*:, the ascent of -hrist cannot be fully accomplished on the cross, sub s ecie aeternitatis. It is only achieved in the return of -hrist, in the reopening of the wound by the obli"ue entry of Thomas(s finger, and the touching of hands amongst his disciples. In a similar vein, the truly made wor' does not consist in the triumph of ob+ecthood it is only when the wor' enters that third space 4 (a transitional space, an in7between space( 4 that the man7made and the self7made, the material and the non7material gather together and tangentially touch in the fevered movement 4 hither and thither, bac' and forth 4 of doubt. The artist(s (doubt( is not about the surfaces of illusion or the veiled nature of reality. Art sows a deep doubt about the mastery of human historical time. In committing us to loo' again 4 retroactively, repetitiously 4 for what can, for that very reason, never be the first instance or the first moment once it is (re7found(, we learn not to disavow the primordial or the primary, but to encircle it, touch it at one remove. In the company of the truly made 4 the ghostly light, the red wound, the dar' fold, the mirrored gyre 4 we have entered the (removed ground(, glimpsed the sign of emptiness. At first sight it appears to be nothing at second light, no resurrection or resolution then, in a third remove, comes the doubter(s "uestion. The lesson of the void and the wound lies in putting us in the osition of the *uestion, that interrogative place which leaves us no option but to incorporate or identify with the ob+ect 4 ourselves, others 4 through the passageway of what is out of balance, unthought, transitional, doubtful. The apostle and the artist as' the same "uestion each time for a different purpose5 does the light dwell in this stone& the void in this colour& the spirit in this flesh& 9otes
1 I borrow this epigraph from Adam Hhillips, +n ,issing- (ic'ling- and %eing %ored, ?aber and ?aber, #ondon, 1==,, p. :3. $ !ac"ues7Alain Giller, ed., (he Seminar of .ac*ues /acan0 %oo' 1II 2 (he Ethics of Psychoanalysis 3454"3467, trans. Dennis Horter, W.W. 9orton M -ompany, 9ew Cor', 1=<6, p. 1,>. * ?rom conversations between Anish )apoor and 8omi ). Bhabha, 1==< @hereafter, ConversationsA. , Conversations. 3

Cves7Alain Bois and Rosalind F. )rauss, 8ormless 2 A $ser9s Guide, None Boo's, 9ew Cor', 1==:, p. $6. 6 Conversations. : 8annah Arendt, (he )uman Condition, Iniversity of -hicago Hress, -hicago, 1=3<, p. $1>. < !ohn /(Brian, ed., Clement Greenberg! the Collected Essays and Criticism, vol. ,,Modernism With a 1engeance- 345:"3464- Iniversity of -hicago Hress, -hicago, 1=<6, p. $31. = Ibid, p. $3,. 1> .herry ;achJ, (Interview 4 Anish )apoor(, Scul ture, ?ebruary 1==6, p. $$. 11 David ?arrell )rell, ed., Martin )eidegger 2 %asic Writings, 8arper, .an ?rancisco and 9ew Cor', 1==*. 1$ Fmmanuel #Jvinas, Collected Philoso hical Pa ers, Gartinus 9i+hoff, Dordrecht, 1=<6, p. ,. 1* I owe this distinction to Hhilip B. Wagoner, 9Self"born9 and 9Man"made9! Architecture- Aesthetics- and Power at 1i;ayanagara, G. @a paper presented at the .outh Asian Regional .tudies .eminar, Iniversity of Hennsylvania, 3 9ovember 1==:A. 1, Ibid, p. <. 13 )rell, o 0 cit0, p. 1>3. 16 Gartin 8eidegger, Poetry- /anguage- (hought, trans. Albert 8ofstadter, Herennial #ibrary, 9ew Cor', 1=:3, p. 1:$. 1: !ac"ues7Alain Giller, o 0 cit0, p. 1$>. 1< .herry ;achJ, o 0 cit0 1 = .herry ;achJ, o 0 cit0 $> Conversations. $1 Conversations. $$ Conversations. $* Conversations. $, !ac"ues7Alain Giller, o 0 cit0, p. 11<. $3 Conversations. $6 Richard .erra, Writings Interviews, The Iniversity of -hicago Hress, -hicago, 1==,, p. 1>>. $: D.W. Winnicott, Playing and <eality, Routledge, 9ew Cor', 1=<$, pp. =67=:. $< Rosalind F. )rauss, (he + tical $nconscious, The GIT Hress, -ambridge, Gass., 1==*, p. $1:. $= 9icholas Abraham and Garia Toro', (he Shell and (he ,ernel, vol. 1, trans. 9icholas T. Rand, The Iniversity of -hicago Hress, -hicago, 1==,, p. 11*. *> !ac"ues7Alain Giller, o 0 cit0 *1 .herry ;achJ, o 0 cit0, p. $*. *$

Conversations. ** Gichael ?ried in 8arrison and Wood, eds, Art in (heory- 347723447, Basil Blac'well, /%ford, 1==$, p. <*$. In putting together these phrases from ?ried, I have stayed true to the spirit of his argument. *, Fmmanuel #Jvinas, (ime and the +ther, trans. Richard A. -ohen, Dus"uene Iniversity Hress, Hittsburgh, 1=<:, pp. 1*,, 1*:. *3 -.8. Dodd, Inter retation of the 8ourth Gos el, -ambridge Iniversity Hress, -ambridge, 1=3*, p. ,*>. *6 Conversations. *: Gy account of the narrative of Thomas in the wider conte%t of !ohannine Theology is largely based on Dodd(s Inter retation of the 8ourth Gos el, pp. ,*14,*$, ,,$4,,*, and Rudolf Bultmann, (he Gos el of .ohn 2 A Commentary, trans. ;.R. Beasley7Gurray in R.W.9. 8oare and !.). Riches, eds, Basil Blac'well, /%ford, 1=:1, pp. 6=*46=:. Ac'nowledgements I would li'e to than' Anish )apoor for ma'ing his art and ideas so readily available to me, never failing, however, to leave their enigma untouched, so that I could find my own way in their midst. Gy gratitude to #inda .chofield for being as forebearing and patient an editor as one could wish for. .heldon Holloc', David Tracy, 8amBa Wal'er and Fric Ban's were unfailingly helpful on a range of matters from .ans'rit poetics and !ohannine theology to -aravaggio, arte overa and much else. Tom Bebbington(s editorial help has been invaluable.