Anish Kapoor ‘s fame is belied by a somewhat shy and self-effacing manner that suggests he would be more comfortable by far back in his studio creating his extraordinary works than discussing them with his public – let alone making speeches on the subject. These days ‘though an artist of Kapoor’s stature is expected to share himself and to be a star, prepared to sell the man as well as his art, however consistently, as in his case, the art sells itself. So, at the opening of his retrospective exhibition in Mumbai last week, the artist did the proper thing: briefly greeting his audience partying in the garden outside the exhibition studio, thanking all those who had helped to create the show and leaving it to the spokespeople from the British Council and Louis Vuitton, the sponsors, further to interpret its importance and that of the return of the artist to his birthplace.
This year I have seen Kapoor’s solo exhibition at the Royal Academy in London, a bizarre juxtaposition of monumental contemporary sculpture and great 18th century rooms that often seemed overcrowded by the works on show. The most memorable pieces there, the great mass of silver spheres in the courtyard called ‘Tall tree and the eye’ that endlessly reflected the moving queues of people heading for the show; the bright pigmented pieces, disciplined bursts of colour reminiscent of Indian temple precincts with their stalls of carefully crafted pyramids of coloured mandala powders – the colours of the festival of holi and of India in general; the crowded room of ‘hive’ pieces, great piles of petrified writhing clay, seen out of the corner of the eye, almost to be living.
For me, the press grabbing red wax works, aside from the shock of the blast of the cannon firing wax balls at a wall, were of curiosity value only in this setting – how much mess could be made on a white wall or a great arched doorway? The impact of the cannon was clearer in the better fitting contemporary space of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao this summer where different mirrored pieces demanded the attention of the viewer and where we were lucky to arrive early to an almost empty museum space – a rare luxury and almost unheard of at a highly publicised and must see exhibition in London these days.
So my fascination in the Kapoor’s work has grown and has also become an inspiration for my daughter’s art ‘A’ level projects involving backdrops of the Guggenheim and Kapoor pieces for photographs of giant bright coloured jellies and heaps of insoluble food colour powder. It took, the Mumbai opening, however, to confirm me as a fully fledged Kapoor groupie, queuing to shake hands with the diffident and somewhat exhausted great artist at his second Indian opening in a week. Sonia Gandhi had already inaugurated the first part of the exhibition in Delhi saying ‘Few artists of our time have captured the imagination of the World as Anish Kapoor’.
In the Mehboob film studios in Bandra, Mumbai, Kapoor’s works showed at their most remarkable in a huge space with high roughcast walls and enough room for most of Bombay and Bollywood high society to meet and greet and show off, high fashion and sparkly images reflected endlessly in the artist’s curving mirrored walls, concave or convex panels and dishes, that reveal, change and consume the viewer; one minutely fractured to create a massive and magical kaleidoscope of its surroundings.
For the first time, unimpeded by the habitual barriers and health and safety hurdles of European galleries, the wax firing cannon not only had its audience jumping but also made sense – for some reason firing wax at roughcast walls is more effective than at smooth paint ‘though why, I cannot tell. The lack of barriers too, just a few polite young people watching out for the unwary or the clumsy backing into a shining surface, allowed a far more personal interaction with every piece and, one imagines, a closer view of the artist’s concept.
For me, overwhelmed by the richesse on show, the most desirable piece was the great spike or spire of polished mirrored steel, apparently pouring endlessly, mercury like, into the floor surface and drawing the eye magnetically from all corners of the room. Irresistible.
This year I have seen Kapoor’s solo exhibition at the Royal Academy in London, a bizarre juxtaposition of monumental contemporary sculpture and great 18th century rooms that often seemed overcrowded by the works on show. The most memorable pieces there, the great mass of silver spheres in the courtyard called ‘Tall tree and the eye’ that endlessly reflected the moving queues of people heading for the show; the bright pigmented pieces, disciplined bursts of colour reminiscent of Indian temple precincts with their stalls of carefully crafted pyramids of coloured mandala powders – the colours of the festival of holi and of India in general; the crowded room of ‘hive’ pieces, great piles of petrified writhing clay, seen out of the corner of the eye, almost to be living.
For me, the press grabbing red wax works, aside from the shock of the blast of the cannon firing wax balls at a wall, were of curiosity value only in this setting – how much mess could be made on a white wall or a great arched doorway? The impact of the cannon was clearer in the better fitting contemporary space of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao this summer where different mirrored pieces demanded the attention of the viewer and where we were lucky to arrive early to an almost empty museum space – a rare luxury and almost unheard of at a highly publicised and must see exhibition in London these days.
So my fascination in the Kapoor’s work has grown and has also become an inspiration for my daughter’s art ‘A’ level projects involving backdrops of the Guggenheim and Kapoor pieces for photographs of giant bright coloured jellies and heaps of insoluble food colour powder. It took, the Mumbai opening, however, to confirm me as a fully fledged Kapoor groupie, queuing to shake hands with the diffident and somewhat exhausted great artist at his second Indian opening in a week. Sonia Gandhi had already inaugurated the first part of the exhibition in Delhi saying ‘Few artists of our time have captured the imagination of the World as Anish Kapoor’.
In the Mehboob film studios in Bandra, Mumbai, Kapoor’s works showed at their most remarkable in a huge space with high roughcast walls and enough room for most of Bombay and Bollywood high society to meet and greet and show off, high fashion and sparkly images reflected endlessly in the artist’s curving mirrored walls, concave or convex panels and dishes, that reveal, change and consume the viewer; one minutely fractured to create a massive and magical kaleidoscope of its surroundings.For the first time, unimpeded by the habitual barriers and health and safety hurdles of European galleries, the wax firing cannon not only had its audience jumping but also made sense – for some reason firing wax at roughcast walls is more effective than at smooth paint ‘though why, I cannot tell. The lack of barriers too, just a few polite young people watching out for the unwary or the clumsy backing into a shining surface, allowed a far more personal interaction with every piece and, one imagines, a closer view of the artist’s concept.
For me, overwhelmed by the richesse on show, the most desirable piece was the great spike or spire of polished mirrored steel, apparently pouring endlessly, mercury like, into the floor surface and drawing the eye magnetically from all corners of the room. Irresistible.
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