Sir Anish Kapoor | |
|---|---|
 Kapoor in 2017 | |
| Born | Anish Mikhail Kapoor (1954-03-12)12 March 1954 (age 71)[1] Mumbai, India |
| Education | |
| Known for | Sculpture |
| Notable work | |
| Spouses | |
| Relatives | Ilan Kapoor (brother) |
| Awards |
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| Website | anishkapoor |
Sir Anish Mikhail KapoorCBE RA (born 12 March 1954) is aBritish[2]sculptor specializing in installation art and conceptual art.[3] Born inMumbai,[4][5] Kapoor attended the all-boys Indian boarding schoolThe Doon School, before moving to theUnited Kingdom to begin his art training atHornsey College of Art and, later,Chelsea School of Art and Design.
His notable public sculptures includeCloud Gate, also known as "The Bean" (2006) in Chicago'sMillennium Park;Sky Mirror, exhibited at theRockefeller Center in New York City in 2006 andKensington Gardens in London in 2010;[6]Temenos, at Middlehaven,Middlesbrough;Leviathan,[7] at theGrand Palais in Paris in 2011; andArcelorMittal Orbit, commissioned as a permanent artwork for London'sOlympic Park and completed in 2012.[8] In 2017, Kapoor designed the statuette for the2018 Brit Awards.[9]
An image of Kapoor features in theBritish cultural icons section of the newly designedBritish passport in 2015.[10] In 2016, he was announced as a recipient of theLennonOno Grant for Peace.[11]
Kapoor has received several distinctions and prizes, such as the Premio Duemila Prize at the 44thVenice Biennale in 1990, theTurner Prize in 1991, the Unilever Commission for the Turbine Hall atTate Modern, thePadma Bhushan by theIndian government in 2012,[12] aknighthood in the2013 Birthday Honours for services to visual arts, an honorary doctorate degree from theUniversity of Oxford in 2014.[13][14] and the2017 Genesis Prize for "being one of the most influential and innovative artists of his generation and for his many years of advocacy for refugees and displaced people".[15][16][17][18][19]
Anish Mikhail Kapoor was born inMumbai, India. His father, anIndianPunjabi Hindu was ahydrographer and applied physicist who served in theIndian Navy,[20] while his mother was ofIraqi Jewish origin.[16][21] His maternal grandfather served ascantor of thesynagogue inPune. At the time,Baghdadi Jews constituted the majority of theJewish community in Mumbai.[22] Kapoor is the brother ofIlan Kapoor, a professor atYork University,Toronto, Canada.[23]
Kapoor attendedThe Doon School, an all-boysboarding school inDehradun, India.[24] In 1971 he moved toIsrael with one of his two brothers, initially living on akibbutz.[25] He began to studyelectrical engineering,[22][26] but had trouble with mathematics and quit after six months.[27] In Israel, he decided to become an artist.[22] In 1973, he left for Britain to attendHornsey College of Art andChelsea School of Art and Design.[20] There he found a role model inPaul Neagu, an artist who provided a meaning to what he was doing.[28] Kapoor went on to teach atWolverhampton Polytechnic in 1979 and in 1982 was Artist in Residence at theWalker Art Gallery, Liverpool. He has lived and worked in London since the early 1970s.[29]
Kapoor became known in the 1980s for hisgeometric orbiomorphic sculptures using simple materials such asgranite,limestone,marble, pigment andplaster.[30] These early sculptures are frequently simple, curved forms, usually monochromatic and brightly coloured, using powderpigment to define and permeate the form. He has said of the sculptures "While making the pigment pieces, it occurred to me that they all form themselves out of each other. So I decided to give them a generic title,A Thousand Names, implyinginfinity, a thousand being a symbolic number. The powder works sat on the floor or projected from the wall. The powder on the floor defines the surface of the floor and the objects appear to be partially submerged, like icebergs. That seems to fit inside the idea of something being partially there..."[31] Such use of pigment characterised his first high-profile exhibit as part of theNew Sculpture exhibition at theHayward Gallery London in 1978.[32]
In the late 1980s and 1990s, Kapoor was acclaimed for his explorations of matter and non-matter, specifically evoking the void in both free-standing sculptural works and ambitious installations. Many of his sculptures seem to recede into the distance, disappear into the ground or distort the space around them. In 1987, he began working in stone.[33] His later stone works are made of solid, quarried stone, many of which have carved apertures and cavities, often alluding to, and playing with dualities (earth-sky, matter-spirit, lightness-darkness, visible-invisible, conscious-unconscious, male-female, and body-mind). "In the end, I'm talking about myself. And thinking about making nothing, which I see as a void. But then that's something, even though it really is nothing."[31]
Since 1995, he has worked with the highly reflective surface of polishedstainless steel. These works aremirror-like, reflecting or distorting the viewer and surroundings. Over the course of the following decade Kapoor's sculptures ventured into more ambitious manipulations of form and space. He produced a number of large works, includingTaratantara(1999),[34] a 35-metre-high piece which was installed in theBaltic Flour Mills inGateshead, England, prior to the renovation beginning there which turned the structure into theBaltic Centre for Contemporary Art; andMarsyas (2002), a large work consisting of three steel rings joined by a single span ofPVC membrane that reached end to end of the 3,400-square-foot (320 m2) Turbine Hall ofTate Modern.[3] Kapoor'sEye in Stone (Norwegian:Øye i stein) is permanently placed at the shore of thefjord inLødingen Municipality in northern Norway as part ofArtscape Nordland. In 2000, one of Kapoor's works,Parabolic Waters, consisting of rapidly rotating coloured water, was shown outside theMillennium Dome in London.
The use of redwax is also part of his repertoire, evocative of flesh, blood, and transfiguration.[35] In 2007, he showedSvayambh (which translated fromSanskrit means "self-generated"), a 1.5-metre block of red wax that moved on rails through theNantesMusée des Beaux-Arts as part of the Biennale estuaire; this piece was shown again in a major show at theHaus der Kunst in Munich and in 2009 at theRoyal Academy in London.[36] Some of Kapoor's work blurs the boundaries between architecture and art. In 2008, Kapoor createdMemory inBerlin and New York for theGuggenheim Foundation, his first piece inCor-Ten, which is formulated to produce a protective coating of rust.[37] Weighing 24 tons and made up of 156 parts, it calls to mindRichard Serra's huge, rusty steel works, which also invite viewers into perceptually confounding interiors.[38]
In 2009, Kapoor became the first Guest Artistic Director ofBrighton Festival. Kapoor installed four sculptures during the festival:Sky Mirror atBrighton Pavilion gardens;C-Curve[39] atThe Chattri,Blood Relations (a collaboration with authorSalman Rushdie); and1000 Names, both at the Fabrica Gallery. He also created a large site-specific work titledThe Dismemberment of Jeanne d’Arc and a performance-based installation:Imagined Monochrome.[40] The public response was so overwhelming that police had to re-divert traffic aroundC Curve at the Chattri and exercise crowd control.
In September 2009, Kapoor was the first living artist to have a solo exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts. As well as surveying his career to date, the show also included new works. On display wereNon-Object mirror works, cement sculptures previously unseen, andShooting into the Corner,[41] a cannon that fires pellets of wax into the corner of the gallery.[3] Previously shown at MAK, Vienna, in January 2009, it is a work with dramatic presence and associations and also continues Kapoor's interest in the self-made object, as the wax builds up on the walls and floor of the gallery the work slowly oozes out its form.
In early 2011, Kapoor's work,Leviathan,[7] was the annualMonumenta installation for theGrand Palais in Paris.[42][43][3] Kapoor described the work as: "A single object, a single form, a single colour...My ambition is to create a space with in 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."
In 2011, Kapoor exhibitedDirty Corner at the Fabbrica del Vapore inMilan.[44] Having fully occupied the site's "cathedral" space, the work consists of a huge steel volume, 60 metres long and 8 metres high, that visitors enter. Inside, they gradually lose their perception of space, as it gets progressively darker and darker until there is no light, forcing people to use their other senses to guide them through the space. The entrance of the tunnel is goblet-shaped, featuring an interior and exterior surface that is circular, making minimal contact with the ground. Over the course of the exhibition, the work was progressively covered by some 160 cubic metres of earth by a large mechanical device, forming a sharp mountain of dirt which the tunnel appears to be running through.
In 2016, his art exposition inMUAC (Mexico City) was a success, with literary contributions from Catherine Lampert, Cecilia Delgado, and Mexican writerPablo Soler Frost.[45]
Kapoor sued theNational Rifle Association of America (NRA) in 2018. The gun lobby group had, without the sculptor's consent, used a filmed image ofCloud Gate in an approximately one-minute-long promotional video called "The Violence of Lies". The suit was ultimatelysettled out of court. Kapoor reported that the settlement included the removal of his work from the NRA's film, saying "They have now complied with our demand to remove the unauthorized image of my sculptureCloud Gate from their abhorrent video, which seeks to promote fear, hostility, and division in American society".[46][47]
In August 2025, a new work designed by Kapoor titledButchered was hung on Skiff, aShell plc oil rig 45 nautical miles off the coast ofNorfolk. The work comprises a 12 metre by 8 metre canvas sprayed with a "blood-like solution" mixed from seawater, beetroot powder and non-toxic food-based pond dye. The artwork was erected illegally byGreenpeace activists with Kapoor's blessing to draw attention to "the vast suffering extreme weather is causing", and is believed to be "the first fine artwork exhibited from a working gas extraction platform", according toThe Guardian.[48]
Kapoor's earliest public commissions include theCast Iron Mountain at the Tachikawa Art Project in Japan,[49] as well as an untitled 1995 piece installed at Toronto'sSimcoe Place resembling mountain peaks. In 2001,Sky Mirror, a large mirror piece that reflects the sky and surroundings, was commissioned for a site outside theNottingham Playhouse. Since 2006,The Bean, a 110-ton stainless steel sculpture with a mirror finish, officially titledCloud Gate, has been permanently installed inMillennium Park inChicago.[3] Viewers are able to walk beneath the sculpture and look up into anbellybutton or "omphalos" above them. The sculpture has been the subject of an absurd rumor/hoax turned Airbnb joke in which an activist group, The Man In Bean Coalition, has distributed pamphlets claiming that there is a man living inside of the sculpture.[50]
In the autumn of 2006, a second 10-metreSky Mirror, was installed atRockefeller Center, New York City.[3] This work was later exhibited in Kensington Gardens in 2010 as part of the showTurning the World Upside Down, along with three other major mirror works.[6]
In 2009, Kapoor created the permanent, site-specific workEarth Cinema[51] forPollino National Park, the largest national park in Italy, as part of the projectArtePollino – Another South.[52][53] Kapoor's work,Cinema di Terra (Earth Cinema), is a 45m long, 3m wide and 7m deep cut into the landscape made from concrete and earth.[52] People can enter from both sides and walk along it, viewing the earth void within.[53][54]Cinema di Terra officially opened to public in September 2009.[52]
Kapoor was also commissioned byTees Valley Regeneration (TVR) to produce five pieces of public art, collectively known as theTees Valley Giants.[55] The first of these sculptures,Tememos, was unveiled to the public in June 2010.Temenos stands 50 metres high and is 110 metres in length. A steel wire mesh pulled taut between two enormous steel hoops, it remains an ethereal and an uncertain form despite its colossal scale.
In 2010,Turning the World Upside Down, Jerusalem was commissioned and installed at theIsrael Museum inJerusalem. The sculpture is described as a "16-foot tall polished-steel hourglass" and it "reflects and reverses the Jerusalem sky and the museum's landscape, a likely reference to the city's duality of celestial and earthly, holy and profane".[56]
TheGreater London Authority selected Kapoor'sOrbit sculpture from a shortlist of five artists as the permanent artwork for the Olympic Park of the2012 Olympic Games.[8][3] At 115 metres tall,Orbit is the tallest sculpture in the UK.
When asked if engagement with people and places is the key to successful public art, Kapoor said:
I’m thinking about the mythical wonders of the world, theHanging Gardens of Babylon and theTower of Babel. It's as if the collective will comes up with something that has resonance on an individual level and so becomes mythic. I can claim to take that as a model for a way of thinking. Art can do it, and I’m going to have a damn good go. I want to occupy the territory, but the territory is an idea and a way of thinking as much as a context that generates objects.
Throughout his career, Kapoor has worked extensively with architects and engineers. He says this body of work is neither pure sculpture nor pure architecture.
His notable architectural projects include:
Of his vision for the Cumana station in Monte Sant'Angelo, Naples, Italy under construction (as of June 2008[update]), Kapoor has said:
It's very vulva-like. The tradition of the Paris or Moscow metro is of palaces of light, underground. I wanted to do exactly the opposite – to acknowledge that we are going underground. So it's dark, and what I’ve done is bring the tunnel up and roll it over as a form like a sock.[65]
In a collaboration with authorSalman Rushdie, Kapoor conceived a sculpture consisting of two bronze boxes conjoined with red wax and inscribed around the outside with the first two paragraphs of Rushdie's text; "Blood Relations"[66][3] or an "Interrogation of the Arabian Nights" in 2006.[67]
Kapoor has designedstage sets including for; the operaIdomeneo at Glyndebourne in 2003;Pelléas et Mélisande,La Monnaie in Brussels, and a dance-theatre piece calledin-i withAkram Khan andJuliette Binoche at theNational Theatre in London.[68]
The Anish Kapoor Foundation was founded as a charity in 2017, registered in London. Kapoor purchasedPalazzo Priuli Manfrin in Venice in 2018,[69] and in early 2021, the Venice city council approved construction plans for the foundation to convert the palazzo into an exhibition venue, artist studio and repository for a number of the artist's works from the foundation's collection.[70] The project will be led by architecture firms FWR Associati of Venice and Studio Una of Hamburg.[70]
In 2014, Kapoor began working withVantablack, which was thought to be one of the least reflective known substances. He would later be grantedexclusive rights to use the material for artistic purposes.[71] His exclusive license to the material has been criticized in the art world, but he has defended the agreement, saying: "Why exclusive? Because it's a collaboration, because I am wanting to push them to a certain use for it. I've collaborated with people who make things out of stainless steel for years and that's exclusive."[72]
Artists likeChristian Furr andStuart Semple have criticised Kapoor for what they view to be the appropriation of a unique material to the exclusion of others.[73][74] In retaliation, Semple developed a pigment called the "pinkest pink" and specifically made it available to everyone except Anish Kapoor and anyone affiliated with him.[75][76] He later stated that the move was itself intended as something likeperformance art and that he did not anticipate the amount of attention it received.[71] In December 2016, Kapoor obtained the pigment and posted an image onInstagram of his extendedmiddle finger which had been dipped in Semple's pink.[77] Semple also developed more products such as "Black 2.0" and "Black 3.0", which are supposed to look nearly identical to Vantablack despite being acrylic, and "Diamond Dust", an extremely reflective glitter made of crushed glass shards that are designed to hurt Kapoor if he dipped his finger in it, all of which were released with the same restriction against Kapoor as the "pinkest pink".[78][79]
Kapoor initially began exhibiting as part ofNew British Sculpture art scene, along with fellow British sculptorsTony Cragg andRichard Deacon.[30] His first solo exhibition took place at Patrice Alexandra, Paris, in 1980.[80] He achieved widespread recognition when he represented Britain at the 1990Venice Biennale,[81] and recounts the experience inSarah Thornton'sSeven Days in the Art World.[82] In 1992 Kapoor contributed todocumenta IX withBuilding Descent into Limbo.[83][3] In 2004, he participated in The 5thGwangju Biennale in Gwangju, Korea. Solo exhibitions of his work have since been held in theTate andHayward Gallery in London,Kunsthalle Basel inSwitzerland,Reina Sofia in Madrid, theNational Gallery of Canada inOttawa, Musée des arts contemporains (Grand-Hornu) in Belgium, theCAPC Museum of Contemporary Art inBordeaux, theCentro Cultural Banco do Brasil in Brazil, and theGuggenheim inBilbao,New York City andBerlin.
In 2008, theInstitute of Contemporary Art inBoston held the first U.S. mid career survey of Kapoor's work.[84] That same year, Kapoor'sIslamic Mirror (2008), a circular concave mirror, was installed in a 13th-century Arab palace now being used as by the Convent of Santa Clara inMurcia, Spain.[85]
Kapoor was the first living British artist to take over the Royal Academy, London, in 2009;[86] the show attracted 275,000 visitors, rendering it at the time the most successful exhibition ever by a living artist held in London. Eventually it was overtaken by the more than 478,000 who attended theDavid Hockney exhibition at the Tate Modern in 2017.[87][88] This show subsequently travelled to the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. In 2010, Kapoor retrospective exhibitions were held at the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) in New Delhi and Mumbai'sMehboob Studio, the first showcase of his work in the country of his birth.[89][90] In 2011 Kapoor had a solo touring exhibition with the Arts Council, part of their "Flashback " series of shows. In May he exhibitedLeviathan at theGrand Palais, and two concurrent shows in Milan at theRotonda della Besana and Fabbrica del Vapore. He had a major exhibition at theMuseum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (MCA) from December 2012 to April 2013 as part of the Sydney International Art Series.[91]
Dirty Corner, exhibited at thePalace of Versailles in 2015, was a topic of controversy due to its "blatantly sexual" nature. Kapoor himself reportedly described the work as "the vagina of a queen who is taking power".[92]
In 2020 Kapoor unveiled a new exhibition at the grounds ofHoughton Hall inNorfolk. It was the largest ever outdoor exhibition of pieces by Kapoor, containing 21 sculptures, some previously unseen, as well as a selection of drawings of his.[93][94]
From 2 October 2021 – 13 February 2022 an exhibition of works created during the pandemic – ‘Painting’ – was shown at the Museum of Modern Art Oxford.
In 2024,Liverpool Cathedral hosted an exhibition of Kapoor's work, entitledMonadic Singularity, to mark its 100th anniversary. It was his first in Liverpool since his show at Walker Art Gallery in 1983.[4]
in 2025, the Jewish Museum, New York, hosted, 'Anish Kapoor: Early Works’ showing his pigment sculptures from the 1970 and 1980s.[95]
2025 also saw Greenpeace Activists unveil 'BUTCHERED' a 12m x 8m canvas depicting 1,000 litres of a blood-red liquid onto active Shell platform in the North Sea[96]
Kapoor's work is collected worldwide, notably by theMuseum of Modern Art in New York City;Tate Modern in London; Fondazione Prada in Milan; theArt Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; theGuggenheim in Bilbao;De Pont Museum of Contemporary Art in Tilburg, the Netherlands; theModerna Museet, Stockholm; the21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art inKanazawa, Japan; and theIsrael Museum in Jerusalem.[29]
In 1995, Kapoor married German-bornmedieval art historian Susanne Spicale.[97] They have a daughter, Alba, and a son, Ishan.[25] The couple separated and divorced in 2013.[98]
Kapoor later married garden designer Sophie Walker, a former studio assistant, after the two began dating in 2013.[99][100][101][102][103] The couple had one daughter together[101][102] and after separating in 2022 later divorced. In 2023, Kapoor married Oumaima Boumoussaoui.[104][105]
During his first marriage, Kapoor lived in a house designed by architectTony Fretton inChelsea, London.[106][107]
In 2009, Kapoor purchased a 14,500 sq ft (1,350 m2) Georgian-style residence atLincoln's Inn Fields for about £3.6 million and had it redesigned byDavid Chipperfield.[108] In 2016, he also purchased a 3,576-square-feet unit at56 Leonard Street in New York for roughly $14 million.[109] In addition, he maintains a residence onHarbour Island, Bahamas.[69]
Artistic accolades
Civilian honours
Honorary Fellowships
Other
Mr. Kapoor was recognized for being one of the most influential and innovative artists of his generation and for his many years of advocacy for refugees and displaced people.
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