Anish Kapoor, Untitled (detail) (2018), via Art Observed

Currently on view at Kamel Mennour’s Paris exhibition space, artist Anish Kapoor has brought a strikingly powerful body of works, mixing styles and forms through a range of pieces to explore a unique and detailed perspective on humanity.  Much like previous works for the artist, twisting desire, power and image through rigorous visual systems, the show presents the viewer and work as inextricably linked, bound together through their shared states and momentary acts of convergence.

Anish Kapoor, Untitled (2018), via Art Observed

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Frieze London, via Art Observed

The doors are open and the 2016 edition of Frieze London is now underway, bringing a wide range of works and artists to bear on the fairgrounds at Regent’s Park in the northern part of the city.  With its VIP Preview concluding today, the fair made its first big push of sales alongside the kick-off for a number of its projects and performance works, which conclude this Sunday.

Samara Golden at Canada Gallery, via Art Observed

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The Art Newspaper reports on Anish Kapoor’s repeated assertion that the vandalism of his work at Versailles last summer was perpetrated by someone close to the local government, after seeing what he called a “pathetic” attempt to address the issue.  “I’d made three reports to the police [about vandalism] and to this day have had no response from them,” Kapoor says. “The councillor [Fabien Bouglé] managed to get a court hearing within hours. I’ll say it again—it was an inside job.” (more…)

Anish Kapoor, She Wolf (2016), via Art Observed

Currently at Gladstone Gallery’s Chelsea locations, artist Anish Kapoor has brought a selection of recent works for Today You Will Be in Paradise, an exhibition that showcases the artist’s particular application of sculptural language towards revealing inquiries of perception, memory, and the body itself.  Exercising his practice across a broad framework of wall-mounted and free-standing arrangements of visceral, often hyper-realistic pieces, Kapoor’s pieces turn extremely personal moments into opportunities to explore broad human themes.

Anish Kapoor, Three Internal Objects (2013-2015), via Art Observed

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Anish Kapoor is drawing controversy this week, after the artist was granted exclusive artist rights to the Vantablack pigment, a paint that absorbs over 99% of light.  “I’ve never heard of an artist monopolizing a material,” says another artist, Christian Furr. “We should be able to use it. It isn’t right that it belongs to one man.” (more…)

Anish Kapoor, Internal Object in Three Parts (detail) (2013-2015) © Anish Kapoor; Courtesy the artist & Lisson Gallery

Anish Kapoor & 17th century Dutch master Rembrandt van Rijn are placed into a neighborly conversation at the Rijksmuseum this month, as dualisms of flesh and meat, figuration and abstraction underscore the more nuanced connections between the pair, and illustrate the ever-changing focal points, yet unified interests in the shapes and forms of the human body and its depiction. (more…)

Willem de Kooning, Untitled XXVIII (1977), via Phillips

Sales resumed for New York’s fall auction weeks yesterday evening, as a Sunday sale at Phillips combined early 20th Century works and contemporary artists in a brisk sale that began strong but stumbled towards the later half of the sale, as 9 of 52 lots ultimately went unsold, achieving a final tally of $66.9 million (just within estimate). (more…)

Anish Kapoor has covered the graffiti on his work Dirty Corner with strips of gold leaf, refusing to remove the graffiti as a French court had ordered, while still concealing it.  The artist noted that the new action turned the piece into “something else, a room still with a painful past, but a piece that first claims the beauty of art”. (more…)

Anish Kapoor has been ordered by a French court to repair the damage to his Dirty Corner sculpture at Versailles, after the work was vandalized with anti-Semitic graffiti.  “From my perspective, this is a triumph for the racists. The right thing is to carry on,” Kapoor says. “We will start working on Monday; this will be an act of transformation which turns the nastiness into something else. I want something active, not reactive.” (more…)

A Versailles politician is taking Anish Kapoor to court over the artist’s decision to leave anti-semitic graffiti on his sculpture at the Versailles Palace.  Versailles municipal councillor Fabien Bouglé filed a complaint to the local public prosecutor, claiming that the graffiti’s content was “perfectly clear”  “I think it’s a wonderful reversal; I’ll see him in court,” Kapoor says. “It shows how insane the whole thing is.” (more…)

Vandals have once again defaced Anish Kapoor’s Dirty Corner sculpture at Versailles, this time covering it in anti-semitic graffiti.  The artist has expressed some desire to leave the graffiti, emphasizing the state of religious and cultural intolerance in France, and “to turn what I hoped always was an act of affirmation as a work of art into something else, into a kind of lament to a state of intolerance,” he said.  (more…)

Artist Anish Kapoor is threatening legal action against a Chinese artist who erected what seems to be a blatant copy of his iconic work Cloud Gate (affectionately nicknamed “The Bean” by residents of Chicago) in the city of Karamay.  “I feel I must take this to the highest level and pursue those responsible in the courts. I hope that the Mayor of Chicago will join me in this action,” Kapoor says.  “The Chinese authorities must act to stop this kind of infringement and allow the full enforcement of copyright.” (more…)

The ArcelorMittal Orbit, Anish Kapoor’s sculpture at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London, will soon have its own Carsten Höller slide, after Kapoor invited the German artist to collaborate.  “I am thrilled that my tallest slide so far will cling onto Anish Kapoor’s The Orbit, taking an existing artwork as its site,” Höller says. “A slide is a sculptural work with a pragmatic aspect; a device for experiencing an emotional state that is a unique condition somewhere between delight and madness.” (more…)

Anish Kapoor’s Dirty Corner, the central installation at the artist’s recently opening Versailles Palace commission, has been vandalized with spray paint.  The work has already commanded harsh criticism for its subject matter and relationship to French history.  “It was lightly sprayed with paint,” says the estate management.  “The work is being cleaned.” (more…)

Anish Kapoor has opened his new installation of works at Versailles to controversy this week, after the artist noted his new work Dirty Corner, as a reference to the sexual organs of Queen Marie Antoinette as she rose to power.  “I know it is a composition, but let’s say that this is ruining the perspective that visitors of the castle may have,” says retired professor Pierre Dhainaut. (more…)

Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones has unveiled the newest addition to his publicly displayed art collection, Sky Mirror, the $10 million work by Anish Kapoor, which alters the viewer’s perception of height through an enormous slanted mirror.  The 23-ton work has traveled the world, but will finally settle into a permanent home at the Cowboy’s AT&T Stadium in Arlington, TX.  “The pictures didn’t do it justice, it’s just beautiful,” Jones said.

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An enormous inflatable concert hall, designed in a collaboration between Anish Kapoor and architect Arata Isozaki, is set to open this week in the coastal Japanese town of Matsushima.  The project is intended to provide a temporary place for events in a region badly damaged by the 2011 Tsunami, and was initiated by Michael Haefliger of the musical event Lucerne Festival.  “I felt a strong desire to make a contribution to overcoming the consequences of the catastrophe, within the scope of what we have to offer.” He said. (more…)

Sculptor Anish Kapoor has unveiled Unity, a memorial to those killed in the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City.  The 19.5 foot tower will be installed at Hanover Square, near the site of the original towers, and will contain a mirrored interior.  “The chamber reflects light so as to form a column, which hovers, ghost-like, in the void of the stone.”  Says Kapoor.  “This very physically monolithic object then appears to create within itself an ephemeral reflection akin to an eternal flame.” (more…)

Anish Kapoor, The Death of Leviathan (2011-2013), via Martin-Gropius-Bau

Covering more than 3,000 square feet in the Martin-Gropius Bau, Kapoor in Berlin is one of the Berliner Festspiele’s tentpole events this summer, examining the pioneering work of Anish Kapoor’s sculptural practice against the backdrop of his German contemporaries and influences.  Composed of almost 70 works, the exhibition serves as an examination of the Turner Prize winner’s work of the past 30 years.

Anish Kapoor, Shooting Into the Corner (2008-2009), via The Guardian (more…)

Sculptor Anish Kapoor has been inducted as a knight of the British Empire this week, part of Queen Elizabeth II’s 2013 Birthday Honors.  The 59-year old Turner Prize winner joins a list of 24 other Indian-born honorees, and also became the first living British artist of Indian origin to take over the Royal Academy in 2009. (more…)

In the past two years, U.S. authorities have seized over $100 Million in art and antiques from Subhash Kapoor, a 64-year-old American citizen accused as one of the biggest smuggles of ancient antiquities and art in the world.  Kapoor has sold or donated ancient art works to a number of prominent museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and LACMA, and is currently being held in India as a suspect in an international smuggling ring.  The United States is also seeking its own charges for the dealer.  “It’s one of our most significant antiquities and artifacts investigations that we’ve conducted,” Immigration and Customs Enforcement Special Agent in Charge James T. Hayes says. (more…)

Anish Kapoor spoke with The Guardian this week in the run-up to his new show of work, Kapoor in Berlin at the Martin-Gropius-Bau in the German capital, speaking about the countries’ support of the arts, and its stark contrast to Great Britain.  “In Germany, it seems that the intellectual and aesthetic life are to be celebrated and are seen as part of a real and good education, whereas in Britain, traditionally – certainly since the Enlightenment – we’ve been afraid of anything intellectual, aesthetic, visual.” (more…)

Anish Kapoor, Shadow IV. Yellow (2011), Courtesy Galería La Caja Negra

Over the past several decades, Indian artist Anish Kapoor has distinguished himself across a variety of media, including granite, limestone, glass and polished steel.  The artist has also, in recent years, expanded his oeuvre to include paper-based works, of which his current show, Shadows at Galería La Caja Negra in Madrid consists. (more…)

Anish Kapoor, Tracey Emin, David Hockney and Grayson Perry have created works to give to the Queen on the occasion of her Diamond Jubilee. David Hockney used a drawing of her initials made on an iPad and Emin created a portrait of her on paper. In total 97 works were acquired for the Royal Collection and will be exhibited at Buckingham Palace in 2013.
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