Anish Kapoor is one of his generation’s most influential sculptors. Kapoor manoeuvres between vastly distinct sizes, through various series of works, perhaps most famous for public sculptures that are both adventures in form and feats of engineering.
Massive, stretched or deflated PVC skins; concave or convex mirrors whose reflections attract and swallow the viewer; recesses cut in stone and pigmented to disappear: deep-felt philosophical polarities of presence and absence, concealment and discovery are summoned by these voids and protrusions. Forms transform inside out, womb-like, and materials are not painted but impregnated with pigment, as if to negate the notion of an exterior surface, welcoming the audience to the inner reaches of the imagination.
For example, the geometric forms of Kapoor from the early 1980s rise from the floor and seem to be made of pure pigment, while the viscous, blood-red wax sculptures from the last ten years ravage their own surfaces and explode the silence of the gallery environment. There are resonances with ancient world mythologies, Indian, Egyptian, Greek and Roman, and modern times.