Anish Kapoor at Royal Academy of Arts – Preview

Shooting Into the Corner and Svayambh Will be Exhibited in London

Jun 21, 2009

Anish Kapoor, British sculptor and winner of the Turner Prize, will show new pieces and best-known pieces such as Shooting Into the Corner and Svayambh at Royal Academy.

Forthcoming exhibitions at London's Royal Academy of Arts will include a major exhibition of pieces by internationally acclaimed British sculptor, Anish Kapoor. The show, entitled Anish Kapoor, will be organised by the Anish Kapoor Studio, the Lisson Gallery, London. and the Gladstone Gallery, New York, in partnership with the Royal Academy of Arts.

Anish Kapoor – About the Artist

The 1991 Turner prize winner was born in Bombay in 1954 to a Hindu father and Jewish-Iraqi mother. He was educated at Hornsey College of Art (1973-77) and Chelsea School of Art (1977-78).

Kapoor, who has lived and worked in London since the 1970s, is now regarded as one of the most important sculptors of his time. He is a member of the Royal Academy of Arts and was awarded a CBE in 2003. The artist rose to prominence in the 1980s when experimenting with biomorphism, irregular abstract forms that recall shapes found in nature.

In 1936, Alfred H. Barr, Jr., art historian and first director of New York City's Museum of Modern Art, coined the term biomorphism to embrace this art form. Other artists whose work is often described as biomorphic include Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore, Jean Arp and Joan Miró. The Academy's exhibition will include Kapoor's White Sand, Red Millet, Many Flowers (1982) which features biomorphic shapes laid on the floor and sprinkled with pure powdered pigments.

Anish Kapoor's Public Sculptures

Kapoor is also renowned for his public sculptures, many of which are known worldwide, such as Cloud Gate in Millennium Park, Chicago. The three-dimensional piece, constructed between 2004 and 2006, is nicknamed The Bean because of its legume-like shape. This huge piece is 33 feet x 66 feet x 42 feet (10 m x 20 m x 13 m), and consists of 168 stainless steel plates. It weighs approximately 100 tonnes.

Other major public sculptures include the Sky Mirror (2001) placed outside the Nottingham Playhouse (Wellington Circus, Nottingham, UK), and Sky Mirror (2006), located at the Rockefeller Centre, New York. The New York Sky Mirror has a 35-foot diameter (10.6 metres), stands three stories tall, and weighs 23 tonnes.

Kapoor utilises a wide range of materials to give form to his sculptures which engage with themes like darkness and light, full or empty, interior and exterior, place and placelessness. His creations are often described as mysterious and sober.

Anish Kapoor Exhibitions Worldwide

The artist's reputation was established in 1980 with his first solo exhibition at Patrice Alexandre, Paris. Numerous exhibitions have since taken place at premier institutions including the Tate and Hayward Galleries in London, Kunsthalle Basel, Haus der Kunst in Munich, Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin, Reina Sofia in Madrid and many others. One of his best-known pieces, the red funnel-like Marsyas, occupied the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern in 2002/3.

The Royal Academy's forthcoming exhibition will explore Kapoor's career to date and will also feature previously unseen works.

Highlights of the show will include works such as Shooting into the Corner (2009). This large-scale piece will evolve during the exhibition as a cannon periodically shoots wax into a corner of the gallery.

Also on display will be Svayambh. (Svayambh is a Sanskrit word meaning "auto-generated".) This large exhibit, which will occupy two rooms, looks like a large block of beetroot-red wax that will move through the galleries like a train on matching red tracks.

As visitors approach the Royal Academy they will see one of Kapoor's newest pieces, a reflective stainless steel sculpture (still to be named), which will be sited in the Annenberg Courtyard.

To accompany the exhibition the Royal Academy will publish a full-colour catalogue in which art historians will investigate Kapoor's career spanning more than 30 years.

Anish Kapoor will open on 26th September and will run until 11th December 2009. Full details of the exhibition and catalogue can be obtained from the Royal Academy of Arts.

The copyright of the article Anish Kapoor at Royal Academy of Arts – Preview in Special Art Gallery Exhibits is owned by Frances Spiegel. Permission to republish Anish Kapoor at Royal Academy of Arts – Preview in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.