Courting Controversy: Anish Kapoor in Versailles

The potential clash of contemporary art installations and cultural heritage sites is bound to provoke a rumble. Following in the footsteps of Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami and Joana Vasconcelos, among others, this summer Versailles invited celebrated British artist Anish Kapoor to exhibit at the royal landmark. Rather than seek a polite dialogue with Versailles’ gardens, Kapoor’s work “engages in a disruptive conversation with the palace’s geometric rigidity. It looks under the carpet of Le Nôtre’s tapis vert and allows the uncomfortable, even the sexual.”

Kapoor wrote those lines in the wake of the vandalisation of his sculpture, Dirty Corner (2011), a mammoth rusty-metal trumpet set against random boulders, on a jagged crevice hacked into one of Versailles’ otherwise immaculate lawns. The artist’s comment that his work might be seen to evoke the “Queen’s vagina assuming power” created such an uproar that two city council members threatened legal action against Kapoor for ‘degrading a national monument’.

Although the work can be seen as a molestation of established beauty, I suspect that these gardens witnessed far worse during their decadent heyday. I’m not a proponent of finding ‘meaning’ in art, but it occurred to me that, with this installation, the artist is digging deep into the very cycle of life, destruction and generation, capturing the very core of the tumultuous events which once unfolded here.

All of Kapoor’s sculptures are in the gardens, except for Shooting into the Corner (2008-2009), which is meaningfully installed in the Jeu de Paume, where the founding oath of the French Revolution was taken in 1789.

There are a total of six works on show, including two of Kapoor’s signature mirrors and the hypnotic Descension (2014), a gigantic black-water whirlpool that churns relentlessly at ground level – audible before it is visible, a disquieting counterpoint to Versailles’ famously festive ‘dancing waters’.

Tip: It’s free to visit just the gardens on weekdays, except Tuesdays, which provides a perfect excuse to not only see the exhibition but also enjoy a leisurely picnic sur l’herbe.

Anish Kapoor in Versailles, Until November 1. Château de Versailles, Place d’Armes, 78000 Versailles. Métro: RER C Château de Versailles. Open daily 9am-6.30pm. Closed Mondays. Etnry €18 (‘Passport’ for all Versailles attractions). Tel: +33 01 30 83 78 00