The mirrored surface dynamically reflects passers in a yet-to-be-titled work, which shares many formal features with the British artist’s iconic Cloud Gate (2006) sculpture in Chicago—known colloquially as “the bean”. The inauguration ceremony will take place in the coming months.
"The city can feel frenetic, fast and hard, imposing architecture, concrete, noise. My work, at 56 Leonard Street, proposes a form that though made of stainless steel is also soft and ephemeral. Mirrors cause us to pause, to be absorbed and pulled in a way that disrupts time, slows it down perhaps; it's a material that creates a new kind of immaterial space."
Anish Kapoor
Anish Kapoor’s sculpture rests on the ground, partially ensconced under one of the second-storey cantilevered apartments of the skyscraper. In this way, it seems to be squeezed by the tower itself, giving the sculpture a sense of movement, while also appearing to prop the tower up.
One unintended benefit of the Tribeca bean’s enormous delays is that it now sits in the middle of one of New York’s main gallery districts—a selfie-friendly beacon for the art lovers crisscrossing the neighbourhood.
