All photographs by Caroline Claisse for Art Observed.

MONUMENTA is an invitation from the French Ministry for Culture and Communication for an internationally-renowned contemporary artist to create a site-specific work for the Grand Palais in Paris; this year’s invitation went to Indian-born Anish Kapoor. With 13,500 square meters of space, the Palais serves as a magnificent backdrop for artistic interaction. Previous invitations include Anselm Kiefer (2007), Richard Serra (2008) and Christian Boltanski (2010).

Entitled Leviathan, Kapoor’s sculpture is a breathtaking 35 meters high. “My ambition,” the artist shares, “is to create a space within a space that responds to the height and luminosity of the Nave at the Grand Palais. Visitors will be invited to walk inside the work, to immerse themselves in colour, and it will, I hope, be a contemplative and poetic experience.”

Although Kapoor was all smiles during the inauguration of the sculpture, he took the publicity as an opportunity to show solidarity for Chinese artist Ai Weiwei. Kapoor dedicated the sculpture to his incarcerated colleague, and issued a call to museums and galleries of the world to close for a day in protest of Wei Wei’s detention by the Chinese government.

More story and images after the jump… (more…)