May 14 Leviathan

Our first stop after breakfast was the Grand Palais. They have an exhibition of Anish Kapoor entitled Leviathan. You enter through a rotating door with obscure glass, so right away, you're a bit disoriented. Then, you enter into this huge "space," dark brown, with walls that seem to recede when you get close. High up are three big holes that undulate away from the curved walls. The atmosphere is a bit pressurized, so you feel physically strange as well as being surrounded by this dark interior. You're definitely inside the insides of something. You can't see what's in those other spaces, but you want to float up and into them. We spent a while there, just experiencing it. Some people were sitting down, others trying to touch the walls. I watched people come into it for a while, and most of them got a delighted look on their faces. (Some looked shocked and almost dismayed.)

We then continued into the huge space of the Grand Palais, one of those 19th-century steel and glass concoctions that are marvelous to behold. Now, Leviathan resolves itself into three huge, purple spheres, connected in the middle and pushing into the space, filling this huge room. (The Kapoor sculpture in Chicago is called "The Bean," I dubbed this one, "The Aubergine.") It's glorious. Kids are running around in delight at the space. Adults are snapping photos and climbing the elaborate staircases to get different view. Both Ira and I thought it was marvelous, already an extraordinary highlight of the trip. I'll leave you with pictures, but nothing really gets at something this large without being next to it, or seeing how small people are next to its bulbosity.