Anish Kapoor

Anish Kapoor is one of a generation of internationally acclaimed British artists who came to prominence in the 1980s. He has since developed a distinctive body of work in stone, marble, pigment, stainless steel, and plaster, producing sculptures that can provoke intensely spiritual and physical feelings.

This catalog accompanies Kapoor's first major showing in a public gallery in Britain. New pieces created especially for the Hayward Gallery transform the London gallery space, penetrating the walls and floors and giving the impression that the work is growing out of the architecture. Included in the show are a series of monumental stone sculptures weighing up to eight tons each.

Much of Kapoor's recent work explores the concept of the "void." The artist cuts deeply into the stone, sometimes coating the interior surfaces with a rich pigment and transforming the void into a charged, dark space. Kapoor also works with reflective surfaces that appear to engulf the viewer and his surroundings.

Homi Bhabha's essay asks what kind of theory of art and culture emerges from Kapoor's work. Bhabha offers an "ethical" interpretation that explores the way the sculptures force one to ponder not just art, but the role of art in the world. He also comments on how playful Kapoor's work is in its use of color, object, and fantasy, and on how the combination of "deadly seriousness" and play are essential in his sculptures.

"I am really interested in the end, at the end of the process, at the way a stone is not a stone, the way the stone becomes something else, becomes light, becomes a proposition, becomes a lens."—Anish Kapoor