Larger than life

At every corner of the show is drama. Like the cannon that goes off every 20 minutes,splattering a 20-pound slug of gooey,crimson paint on a wall (Shooting into the Corner). Hive is a rusted steel sculpture that evokes Kapoor’s highly sexual repertoire of voids,orifices,vulvas and bulges. Grayman Cries,Shaman Dies,Billowing Smoke,Beauty Evoked is perhaps the most experimental. This work,made of 53 low-lying pieces,is fashioned by a computer-directed machine piping out coils and lumps of cement. A perfect example of how Kapoor’s sculptures grow beyond the boundaries of their given environment,becoming environs by themselves.

Born in Mumbai,then Bombay,to a Bagdhdadi Jewish mother and Indian father,Kapoor spent his early years at the Doon School in Dehradun. He had planned,like most good Indian boys at the time,to become an engineer. But in 1970,a trip to Israel with his brother changed his mind forever. The kibbutz instilled in him a desire for art. Kapoor writes,“I always loved art,but it was in Israel that I realised I wanted to study art.” Leaving India became inevitable when Kapoor bagged a seat at Hornsey College of Art,London.

His first major exhibition was held at the Tate Modern in 1980. His notable public art projects include Cloud Gate and Sky Mirror,at the Rockefeller Centre in New York—works which earned him comparisons with great public artists like Claes Oldenburg and Coosje Van Bruggen,.

To understand the magic of Kapoor’s work,one has to go back to the beginning,when the artist began crafting his first sculptures out of atypical materials. While everyone was working with bronze,wood and stone,Kapoor introduced viewers,in the late ’70s and early ’80s,to sculpture that was shiny,reflective and did not fit on a pedestal in a gallery or on a niche in one’s home.
Kapoor drew on India for inspiration in his initial work. A group of sculptures done in the 1980s—some are on display at the Royal Academy show—created forms out of powdery vermillion and chilly red. To the unschooled eye,they looked like mounds of spices heaped up at a local kirana store. In Kapoor’s hands,these became metaphors for transcontinental identity.

His later works in the early ’90s put rough stone from quarries at the centrestage. In the late ’90s and early 2000s,he created his monumental reflective sculptures,forged in his factories over several months,with the help of 20 skilled craftsmen. The public art projects could dazzle and engage even the lay person who had never visited a gallery. “What makes him a significant artist is that he is able to surprise his viewers every time,creating a bit of magic,” says Geetha Mehra,director of Sakshi Art Galley,who flew to London to attend the show and meet Kapoor.

“Anish’s greatness lies in the fact that he creates art for spaces,unlike other artists whose art then looks for spaces after being created,” says Delhi-based collector Swapan Seth,a proud owner of a Kapoor. “He was a pioneer with a vision for open spaces. They (his works) are public,not private conversations,” says Seth.

Once quizzed on the importance of public art projects,Kapoor said,“The mythical wonders of the world,like the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and the Tower of Babel,make me think there is a collective will to come up with something that has resonance on an individual level. That is a model for my way of thinking,since art can do that and I want to have a good go at it.” Through the interplay between form and light,Kapoor aspires to evoke sublime experiences,which address primal physical and psychological states.
His mixed lineage enriches Kapoor’s take on culture. Like the mounds of colour symbolised India,some of his works refer to the Holocaust. Kapoor is noncommittal about his lineage though. His parents,he has maintained,were cosmopolitan,modern folk.

Tasneem Mehta,known for her restoration work,has been negotiating a public art project for the city of his birth. It’s almost a year now since Kapoor contemplated an exhibition in Mumbai,but the funds have fallen short each time. “Anish is to art,what V.S. Naipaul is to literature. It is disgraceful that there are no public art sculptures by an artist of his repute in his own country,” says Mehta. “I met him at the Venice Biennale in June. When I told him about the project of creating public art on Marine Drive and at an old abandoned factory in Lower Parel,he was thrilled. However,he is a superstar and always has a full calendar. It is also an expensive venture which is why we are negotiating with the government for funding,” she says.

Like many others who love Kapoor’s work,Mehta believes that his sculpture is both beautiful yet subversive. “When you view the art from a distance,one is of the impression that the gleaming spheres are an object of beauty. However,on closer examination,the shiny finish of the sculpture causes many reflections and distortions till it attains a hallucinatory,surreal quality that subverts obvious beauty,” says Mehta.
Kapoor has set his sights on bigger achievements. He is currently making the world’s largest commission,a £15m five-part sculpture known as the Tees Valley Giants,destined for five towns in the north-east of England. Be prepared for another big deal.