Recently, Anish Kapoor, one of the most influential contemporary artists, came to Shenzhen to hold a solo exhibition. The exhibition displays more than 80 pieces of his representative works spanning nearly 40 years, including large-scale installations, sculptures, paintings, and other works.
The Anish Kapoor exhibition will be on display at the Shenzhen Museum of Contemporary Art and Urban Planning until July 4, 2021.

After watching the exhibition, I was most shocked by his sculpture experiments and models, from which I could see his thinking and exploration of materials, colors, and space.

Today we would like to share several of his most representative series of works with you.

Anish Kapoor
anishkapoor.com

  • - Born in 1954 in Mumbai, India. Now lives and works in London. 
  • - Well-known global contemporary art master, whose works are labeled as a combination of Eastern philosophy and Western spirit.
  • - 1973-1977 studied at London  Hornsey College of Art and 1977-1978 at  Chelsea School of Art and Design. A British Indian sculptor specializing in installation art and conceptual art. 
  • - In 1990, he was involved in the 44th Venice Biennale on behalf of the United Kingdom, and won the "Premio Duemila Award for New Artist", and became the winner of the "Turner Prize" the following year.

Kapoor has held exhibitions at the Grand Palais in Paris, Kensington Park in London, Rockefeller Center in New York, Millennium Park in Chicago, and other world-famous places. He is also the first foreign artist to hold a solo exhibition at the Tai Temple in Beijing. Kapoor's works Cloud Gate, Sky Mirror, and Earth are all known as hot style works.

Kapoor's style is remarkable. He is known for his large-scale installations with a minimalist color, using red wax blocks, stainless steel mirrors, and powders as his usual media. Each work covers Kapoor's exploration of the world and self-consciousness, his pursuit of time and space, and thus forms a dialogue between the phenomenon and the spirit.

Now let's enjoy it!

Explore boundaries with powder


01 1000 names(1979-80)

1000 Names was his first work inspired by the rich colors of India, an extremely simple sculpture with traditional oriental saturated pigments and geometric shapes.

He uses wood, plaster, and paint to combine geometric forms with organic forms to create a poetic collection of sculptures. It was a very new form of sculpture at the time.
 
 


 

▲Early works 1979-80

 
 
Why did he think of such a way of creation?
 
While traveling in India, Kapoor discovered a toner used for makeup and certain rituals. He wanted to show something natural, primitive, and of free will with these toners. The sculpture through powder that is like an interface, emerging from the floor and wall.
 
 


▲Experiments and drafts 1979-80

 
He worked on such sculptures throughout the 1980s, so he named the series 1000 Names, meaning "infinity", meaning that each sculpture is part of a whole.

 

 
 

▲The shape changed from geometry to organic  1980-1985


 
Explore boundaries with color
 
02 Void Field(1989)
 
In the late 1980s, Kapoor made a series of concave pieces that were painted in deep blue. Colour diminishes the sensation of an object as if it had reached another dimension.
 

 

▲Version 1 Void 1987


Void explores emptiness, infinity, and the idea of "objects becoming Spaces". It swallows up the viewer's sign with an intense dark blue, the perception of depth and distance flattens out, slipping unawares into the experience.
 

 

  


▲Different versions of Void 1987-1989

 
Then he found another way to represent nothingness, Descent into Limbo, a 2.5-meter-deep black hole.
 

  
 
▲Descent into Limbo (1992)


"That's what I'm interested in: the void -- the moment when it's no longer a hole -- a space filled with nonexistence." - Anish Kapoor

people consider the rocks as the spaces we never understand, which are kinds of mysterious infinite spaces. 
 
 


 
Kapoor then wondered whether the same effect could work with a concave mirror.


 
Explore boundaries with mirrors


03 Sky Mirror(2001)
 
He then began exploring industrial materials such as PVC, fiberglass, and steel. He turns the polished stainless steel into various shapes, reflecting or distorting the audience and the surroundings like a haha mirror, trying to change the shape and space.
 


 
One of the most famous creations is the Sky Mirror, which viewers describe as "bringing heaven to earth".


 
▲Sky Mirror 2001


Involving the audience and the space around it is Anish's skill.
 
The work firstly rolls out in the form of public sculpture. Commissioned by the Hanover Theatre, it is made as a 20 feet wide concave mirror.
 

 


When in front of the Sky Mirror, you feel like you're being pulled into another world. The concave mirror turns the real world upside down, making you feel dizzy while blending in with your surroundings, leaving you wondering about reality and try to break out of the box.
 


 
What you see is not what you see. Kapoor uses the simplest way to provoke philosophical thinking in the viewer.
 

On this basis, the stainless steel surface of Sky Mirror often hides in the surrounding environment, which connecting the environment and breaking the boundaries between things and people.



 

 

 ▲Other Mirrors

Walk around the mirror and see how "your world" has changed.


▲"S curve" stainless steel, 216.5x975.4x121.9cm, 2006


 

▲"Halo" stainless steel, 220x220x44.5cm, 2009


 
▲"Untitled" Stainless Steel and Resin, 220x222x45.5 cm, 2013

 
04 When I Am Pregnant(1992)
 
 
This artwork looks very simple. A round ball pops up on the white wall and smoothly sticks to it.
 
The sculpture, which extending from a building, reflects Kapoor’s interest in the origin of life. When the artist has finished a piece of work, the work is just like his child. While it never belongs to you, the artist has his special evaluation.
  
 
Even in later times, the artist creates other works which are different, the hidden identity crisis triggers impressive thinking when they are on display.
 
 


05 Marsyas(2002-03)


In the early 2000s, Kapoor became more ambitious in the scale of his work and began to work around sites and buildings.


  

▲Marsyas 2002


In 2002, Kapoor erected three colossal steel rings at the Tate Morden Gallery in the UK and connected them with a 155-meter-long red plastic membrane, forming the shape of a trumpet and extending the length of the gallery's main hall.

 
In 2011 Kapoor placed the giant orb at the Grand Palais in Paris, which has been called one of the supreme works of art ever. The sculpture consists of three 35-meter-high interconnected balloons with a deep purple surface and a  semitransparent red interior.


 
▲Leviathan 2011


Spectral linear structures change with the position and intensity of the sun vary. The movement of the shadow is like a "beast" wandering around.

 
 
▲Leviathan interior

Covered by red PVC canvas, the device is a giant double-horn structure. The viewers shuttle through the installation and can never see them all. Therefore, it remains mysterious and unfathomable. The participation of the audience becomes part of the work.

While the viewer visiting, the device can make a sound reverberating in the whole Turbine Hall Of Tate at the same time. Through dual sensory stimuli, Marsyas has become one of the most notable works of Kappor.

In 2009, Kappor created the permanent device in New Zealand and re-displayed the large sculpture outdoors. The sculpture, which is a double-mouth trumpet-like device, was installed in the groove of the mountains.
 
 
 
 
The size of the work is a difficult point in the production process. From the view of the artist, the size must be bigger than the previous work. Size is just a tool but not a rigid index for measuring the quality of the work.
 

 
 
 
06 My Red Hometown(2003)


▲My Red Hometown. Wax, paint, iron arm, engine, diameter 12 m, 2003
 
My Red Hometown, a giant automated art installation at the heart of the gallery, is powered by a machine that turns a metal arm along a giant container containing 25 tons of soft red wax. The metal squares moved slowly on the dial like hands on a dial, and the traces of red wax seemed to be the passage of time. The red waxwork volcano is about to erupt magma, driven by the rotating wheel, constantly regenerate, cycle and repeat.


 
07 Cloud Gate(2006)
 


We have to say that Kapoor has accumulated a large amount of wealth through many public projects, after all, art costs a lot. The one that received the most praise is Cloud Gate in Millennium Park Plaza, Chicago, which the local people jokingly call Bean.
 

 


Kapoor uses the polished stainless steel again and seamlessly welds them together, forming a magic shape. Like the series of Sky Mirror, Bean's surface reflects the distorted images of its surroundings. At this time, he perfectly combines the ideas of Sky Mirror and When I Am Pregnant.
 
  
 
The art reflects one or two people, or a single building and the whole complex of Chicago. It also inspires people to approach it, establish a relationship with it and be enlightened.
 
The work is not as easy to make as Sky Mirror. It costs unprecedentedly high--$23 million. It is so lucky for Kapoor not to be sued because there is only $6 million when applying for the project. Just because of the extremely high costs, he has to hire security guards to watch over day and night.
 
 
 
However, the price of Kappor’s work is indirectly driven by this expensive work, which also makes him a benchmark for the price of contemporary artworks. 


08 Descension (2014)
 

 


Descension is made up of a huge and round whirlpool, in which black flows are continuously collapsing, forming a non-stop black hole. It is one of Kapoor’s most attractive works, which always makes people deeply lost in thought. The water is treated with black pigments thus producing a similar effect to a black hole.
The water here represents a strong oriental philosophy. It is the most commonly used material with extraordinary power.


 

The work has been curated in many places, where it shows different meanings. When it was displayed under the Brooklyn Bridge, USA in 2017, it was implied that the political outlook was not clear at the time.
 
 
Kapoor pays little attention to the connection with nature and focuses mainly on himself. From the crisis of his own identity to the step-by-step exploration, transcending himself, and trying to influence how the viewer sees and treats the world, Kapoor's artwork continues to exert its influence.


09 Dirty Corner（2015）


 

In 2015, Anish Kapoor held a solo exhibition at the Palace of Versailles. But the show did not go well, and the installation was destroyed three times. 

Facing the ornate palace, Kapoor placed a huge steel "horn" with gravel in the middle of the garden.
 
The "indecent" appearance immediately angered the French people, who began attacking Kapoor, who is half-Jewish, with "anti-Semitic" remarks written in French on sculptures and rocks.
 
 

 


Dirty Corner suddenly became a real "Dirty Corner" -- an outlet for racists and right-wing royalists.
 
Kapoor responded, "I will keep these scars to remember this painful history......".
 
Eventually, he had to compromise and covered the graffiti in gold foil after a complicated legal battle.
 
"As an artist,
We have to do experiments in public,
That's how society grows."
- Anish Kapoor


 
10 Stage Designs(2012-2016)
 
Kapoor designed the stage installation for Parsifal (an opera in Dutch National Theatre), which full of his usual elements: mirrors and high-purity reds and blues.


▲Het Muziektheater 2012 Parsifal
 
In 2016, Kapoor designed a tripartite stage for Tristan and Isolde ( an opera in British National Theatre) to enhance the sense of order in the space. The bold styling combined with the shadow effect creates a mythical backdrop for this love story.


 
▲ENO 2016 Tristan and Isolde 
 
 
Kapoor's sculptures blend the object, viewer, and environment into one, giving you an immersive sensory experience.
The audience is no longer a mere spectator, but a participant, inviting us to touch, feel and experience a different world.