PRINTCatalogue Note:
THE MONUMENTAL SCULPTURAL ART OF KAPOOR
Anish Kapoor is one of the most influential sculptors of his generation who has worked in London since the 1970s and changed the perception of contemporary sculptural art through his mind-bending sculptures. He maneuvers between vastly different scales and across various series of public sculptures that are both adventurous in form and in engineering. The resulting visual and psychological experiences draw its viewers into the artist's poetic sculptural language. “Sky Mirror, Wine” offers a dazzling experience of light and architecture, presenting its viewers with a vivid inversion of the reflective image from the mirror’s wine color concave surface. Anish Kapoor’s geometric or biomorphic sculptures of the 1980s were often monochromatic and brightly coloured, composed of simple materials such as limestone and other naturalistic materials in curved form. In the late 1980s and 1990s, Kapoor was particularly acclaimed for his explorations on matter and non-matter, specifically evoking the void in both his ambitious installations and freestanding sculptural works.
Kapoor has worked with a plethora of medium including works composed of stretched or deflated PVC skins, pigmented stone with carved recesses for instance. Many of his sculptures seem to disappear into the ground or distort the space around them as it eventually recedes into the distance. In essence, his sculptures ventured into ambitious manipulations of form and space, where the protrusions and voids all summon up feelings of the metaphysical opposites of presence and absence, concealment and revelation, enticing the viewer to the boundless realms of his own imagination. Since 1995, Kapoor has worked with the highly reflective surface of polished stainless steels. The concave or convex mirrored surface of the elliptical stainless steel bend the r eflected spaces and its surrounding architecture. It addresses notions of interiority and exteriority and the psychological states that accompany the movement of bodies in space due to their relative proximity to the work. Kapoor installed Sky Mirror at Rockefeller Center, 35- foot in diameter and weighed 23 tons. This threestory stainless steel sculpture reflected the New York skyline and in the words of Kapoor, it brings the sky down to the ground.
Kapoor studied at Hor nsey College of Art and subsequently completed postgraduate studies at the Chelsea School of Art in London. He represented Great Britain at the XLIV Venice Biennale in 1990 where he was awarded with the Premio Duemila and was awarded with the prestigious Turner Prize in 1991. In 2002, the artist received the Unilever Commission for the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern and most recently received an honorary doctorate from the University of Oxford in 2014. Anish Kapoor has had exhibitions in leading museums and galleries worldwide. He has recently exhibited in the Jewish Museum and the Tolerance Center, Moscow (2015); The Chateau de Versailles, Versailles (2015); The Sakip Sabanci Museum, Turkey (2013); The Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul (2012); Grand Palais, France (2011) among other venues.
“I THINK I AM A PAINTER WHO IS A SCULPTOR… FOR ME THE TWO THINGS HAVE SOMEHOW COME TOGETHER, SO THAT I AM MAKING PHYSICAL THINGS THAT ARE ALL ABOUT SOMEWHERE ELSE, ABOUT ILLUSORY SPACE.” – ANISH KAPOOR
Anish Kapoor is one of the most influential sculptors of his generation who has worked in London since the 1970s and changed the perception of contemporary sculptural art through his mind-bending sculptures. He maneuvers between vastly different scales and across various series of public sculptures that are both adventurous in form and in engineering. The resulting visual and psychological experiences draw its viewers into the artist's poetic sculptural language. “Sky Mirror, Wine” offers a dazzling experience of light and architecture, presenting its viewers with a vivid inversion of the reflective image from the mirror’s wine color concave surface. Anish Kapoor’s geometric or biomorphic sculptures of the 1980s were often monochromatic and brightly coloured, composed of simple materials such as limestone and other naturalistic materials in curved form. In the late 1980s and 1990s, Kapoor was particularly acclaimed for his explorations on matter and non-matter, specifically evoking the void in both his ambitious installations and freestanding sculptural works.
Kapoor has worked with a plethora of medium including works composed of stretched or deflated PVC skins, pigmented stone with carved recesses for instance. Many of his sculptures seem to disappear into the ground or distort the space around them as it eventually recedes into the distance. In essence, his sculptures ventured into ambitious manipulations of form and space, where the protrusions and voids all summon up feelings of the metaphysical opposites of presence and absence, concealment and revelation, enticing the viewer to the boundless realms of his own imagination. Since 1995, Kapoor has worked with the highly reflective surface of polished stainless steels. The concave or convex mirrored surface of the elliptical stainless steel bend the r eflected spaces and its surrounding architecture. It addresses notions of interiority and exteriority and the psychological states that accompany the movement of bodies in space due to their relative proximity to the work. Kapoor installed Sky Mirror at Rockefeller Center, 35- foot in diameter and weighed 23 tons. This threestory stainless steel sculpture reflected the New York skyline and in the words of Kapoor, it brings the sky down to the ground.
Kapoor studied at Hor nsey College of Art and subsequently completed postgraduate studies at the Chelsea School of Art in London. He represented Great Britain at the XLIV Venice Biennale in 1990 where he was awarded with the Premio Duemila and was awarded with the prestigious Turner Prize in 1991. In 2002, the artist received the Unilever Commission for the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern and most recently received an honorary doctorate from the University of Oxford in 2014. Anish Kapoor has had exhibitions in leading museums and galleries worldwide. He has recently exhibited in the Jewish Museum and the Tolerance Center, Moscow (2015); The Chateau de Versailles, Versailles (2015); The Sakip Sabanci Museum, Turkey (2013); The Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul (2012); Grand Palais, France (2011) among other venues.
“I THINK I AM A PAINTER WHO IS A SCULPTOR… FOR ME THE TWO THINGS HAVE SOMEHOW COME TOGETHER, SO THAT I AM MAKING PHYSICAL THINGS THAT ARE ALL ABOUT SOMEWHERE ELSE, ABOUT ILLUSORY SPACE.” – ANISH KAPOOR