Kapoor’s Catoptricks

Proudly stuffed beneath a Herzog & de Meuron condo tower at the corner of Leonard and Church, Anish Kapoor’s decade-in-the-making squidge does not, as of yet, have a title. May I suggest The Dud? The developers hope to tap affection for Kapoor’s beloved mirrored “bean,” which truly does create a point of joyous public unity in Chicago’s Millennium Park. In Tribeca, The Dud deliberately makes you think about how it is too big for its site, looming over the public sidewalk, an unintended symbol of luxury real estate as a glittering aneurysm inflating to shred the tissue of the city. Be sure to squeeze into the cramped little passage of leftover space behind. There, the two halves of the sculpture’s contoured body join together so it can fit around the snaggy edge of a gallery storefront, with the resulting cleft unmistakably suggesting a monstrous butt crack, facing inward so that the high-rise’s denizens (including Kapoor, who supposedly bought a $13.5 million unit in 2016) can literally see themselves as the asshole.