The exhibition presents several groups of entirely new works created over the past year. On the one hand, he takes his interest in the transcendental qualities of colour to new levels of luminosity and independent existence. In parallel, he works directly with materials and forms from the earth - mud, cement and metallic pigments.
Lisson Gallery is proud to announce a major exhibition of new works by Anish Kapoor.
Spanning both the gallery’s spaces on Bell Street, London, the exhibition marks 30 years of
Lisson Gallery working together with the Turner-prize winning artist and provides an in-
depth investigation of Kapoor’s most recent work.
The first living artist to be the subject of a solo exhibition at London’s Royal Academy of
Arts (2009), Kapoor was born in Bombay in 1954, and first rose to prominence in the
1980s with his brightly coloured, pigment-coated sculptures. The biomorphic forms of the
seminal 1000 Names series soon became an iconic part of his extensive oeuvre, heralding
what was to become a three-decade long exploration of colour, form and a fascination
with dualities.
Later works saw larger-scale installations negotiating and negating space, sometimes
seeming to swallow the ground whole, at other times collapsing in on themselves into a
void, or creating a new space hovering between the work and its viewer. Kapoor’s
sculptures of the past decade, often made of highly-polished metals including stainless
steel, gold, bronze and copper, warp and distort not only the viewer’s vision of them, but
the very landscape and environment in which they are sited.
The mobility of Kapoor’s visual language has been matched by a profound engagement
with physical matter – both natural materials including granite and marble, and man-made
substances such as wax and fibreglass. Kapoor proposes a complex dialogue between
extremes – the earthbound and the transcendental, the colourful and the austere, entropy
and the sublime.
Kapoor’s new Lisson Gallery exhibition presents several groups of entirely new works
created over the past year. On the one hand, he takes his interest in the transcendental
qualities of colour to new levels of luminosity and independent existence. In parallel, he
works directly with materials and forms from the earth – mud, cement and metallic
pigments.
Germano Celant aptly described Kapoor’s early work as representing a “dialogue
between spirit and matter, above and below, masculine and feminine... the duality [in
which] the energy of transformation and evolution lies,” This description still holds true in
his recent work, while the new work shows the continuing richness of this artistic field of
perceptual enquiry for new ideas and forms.
About the artist
Anish Kapoor (b.1954, Bombay) lives and works in London. His work has been exhibited
extensively internationally at major institutions and exhibitions. Solo exhibitions include;
Monumenta, Grand Palais, Paris (2011); Museo Guggenheim de Arte Moderno y
Contemporáneo, Bilbao (2011); Guggenheim, New York (2009); Lisson Gallery, London
(2009); Royal Academy of Arts, London (2009); MAK, Vienna (2009); Centro Cultural
Banco Do Brazil, Rio de Janeiro (2006). Group exhibitions have included Royal Academy
of Arts, London (2011); Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC
(2010); Pinchuk Arts Centre, Kiev (2010); KolnSkulptur 5, Cologne (2009); Institut
Valencià d'Art Modern, Valencia (2009).
Kapoor is currently the subject of major solo exhibitions at Pinchuk Art Centre Kiev, 19
May – 30 September 2012, and at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, 16 June – 4 November 2012.
A series of wax works are included alongside work by Yves Klein and James Lee Byars at
the Museum of Modern Art, Nice, 29 June – 16 December 2012. He has forthcoming
major exhibitions at the Leeum Samsung Museum, Seoul; 25 October 2012 – 27 January
2013; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 20 December 2012 – 1 April 2013.
Kapoor was commissioned by the Greater London Authority to create a permanent
artwork for the London Olympics 2012. The resulting Arcelor Mittal Orbit, created in
collaboration with Cecil Balmond, is now on display at the London Olympic Park.
Anish Kapoor has also been awarded several prizes including the Padma Bhushan in India
(2012), the Praemium Imperiale prize of Japan (2011), the Turner Prize Award (1991) and
the ‘Premio Duemila’ at the Venice Biennale (1990). He was elected Royal Academician in
1999 and has been awarded Honorary Fellowships by the London Institute and Leeds
University (1997), University of Wolverhampton (1999) and the Royal Institute of British
Architects (2001). He was awarded a CBE in 2003. Kapoor’s works can be found in many
international museum collections including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the
Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Tate,
London; the British Council Collection; the Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix; and the Prada
Foundation, Milan.
For press information and images please contact: Toby Kidd and Amy Sutcliffe at JB Pelham PR. Tel: +44 20 8969 3959
Email: toby@jbpelhampr.com or amys@jbpelhampr.com
Opening 10 october
Lisson Gallery
Opening Hours: Monday-Friday 10am-6pm, Saturday 11am-5pm
29 Bell Street, London
Admission free