World-renown
sculptor Anish Kapoor is-as one of the most important artists of his
generation-known for his public sculptures, which are famous for both their
form and their engineering. Kapoor uses a wide range of materials to create
works of art that vary in terms of scale. Born in India, Kapoor did his
Bachelor’s at Hornsey College and Master’s at the Chelsea School of Art both in
London. His work has been exhibit in countries as diverse as China, Germany,
Mexico, and Russia. His sculptures are made from mirrors, beeswax, PVC, natural
stone, and mainly embrace biomorphic and geometric forms. Many can be found in
collections at the Museum of Modern Art (New York), the National Art Gallery
(Washington, DC), and the Tate Gallery (London). Kapoor works with close to 30
people at his studio. Material and colour carry major importance across all of
his public monuments. One of his best-known works is “Cloud Gate” at Millennium
Park in Chicago. Like many sculptors, Kapoor too frequently uses natural stone,
in which he carves and creates contemporary forms out of it-by hand. His
geometric sculptures use a plain language to interpret subjects such as nature,
humanity, existence, the metaphysical world, and the depth of the soul within
the framework of both Indian and Western culture. Their poise awakens a sense
of mystique as well of surprise in the eye of their beholders. While Kapoor
works with marble, onyx, alabaster, granite, and sand stone, he also finds more
modern materials such as plastic exciting. “The material should integrate with
the designs that people are trying to create,” says the artist… who stresses
that the material has the potential to concretise ideas, metaphors, and the
imagination.
“Natural Stone Has a
Memory”
Kapoor’s first
comprehensive Turkish exhibition took place at the Sakıp Sabancı Museum in
2015. Many of Kapoor’s specifically marble, alabaster, and other natural stone
works made their world debut at that exhibition, curated by Sir Norman
Rosenthal-thereby making it a first on more than one front. Influenced by
Istanbul-a city renown for its stone architecture, and known as the cradle of
both traditional Eastern and Western artisanship-Kapoor himself had sculpted a
number of large-scale works out of various colours of marble. The most
important part of the exhibition was that all of the sculptures formed a
continuum despite having been produced independently of one another. Be it his
previous works, or be the sandstone, granite, limestone, marble, alabaster, and
onyx works featured that took centre stage specifically at that exhibition,
Kapoor’s iconic sculptures evoke a sense of eternity. Kapoor comments that,
“Upon looking at the pieces, its as though we recall something. That’s because
natural stone has memory. A work becomes a work of art the moment it begins to
speak to our inner memory. Some of the elements of that art are very strong in
this sense in terms of activating one’s memory.”
