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Voice, Monstrosity and Flaying: Anish Kapoor's Marsyas as a Silent Sound Work

Lookup NU author(s): Professor Mark Dorrian

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Abstract

This paper examines the relation between visual and acoustic monstrosity as articulated in the myth of the musical contest waged between Apollo and Marsyas. Drawing upon Jean-Pierre Vernant’s writing on the gorgon, the paper notes how Marsyas’ playing of the instrument is positioned within a mimetics of monstrosity that lead back to Medusa. The paper demonstrates how the punishment of flaying subsequently exacted by the god upon the vanquished satyr has stood as a kind of limit condition of what sight can bear, a thematic that returns us to Medusa herself. Citing Zbigniew Herbert’s poem, “Apollo and Marsyas” (1961), in which the petrifying visual effect of the gorgon becomes transferred onto Marsyas’ howl, a new reading of Anish Kapoor’s installation Marsyas (2002) is developed, which reads it – in its overwhelming visual phonicity – as a silent sound work.

Publication metadata

Author(s): Dorrian M

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: Architectural Theory Review

Year: 2012

Volume: 17

Issue: 1

Pages: 93-104

Print publication date: 03/07/2012

ISSN (print): 1326-4826

ISSN (electronic): 1755-0475

Publisher: Routledge

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13264826.2012.660969

DOI: 10.1080/13264826.2012.660969

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