Anish Kapoor Biography
Sir Anish Kapoor (Bombay, 12 March 1954) is a British sculptor and architect. Anish Kapoor was born in 1954 in Bombay, India. Having moved to England at the age of nineteen, he first attended the Hornsey College of Art in London (1973–77) and then the Chelsea School of Art (1977–78). After completing his studies he taught in 1979 at Wolverhampton Polytechnic. The following year the artist held his first solo exhibition in Paris, at Patrice Alexandre's studio, which marked the beginning of an intense exhibition activity. At the beginning of the eighties his sculptural research, aimed at a multiplicity of new forms, in a continuous dialogue between two-dimensionality and three-dimensionality, makes him one of the most representative artists of New British Sculpture; term with which critics identify the new English sculpture scene, which includes artists such as Tony Cragg and Antony Gormley. In a continuous investigation into the dialectic of opposites, in the 1980s the artist created sculptures with partly abstract shapes completely covered in pure pigment. In the nineties, however, his works took on increasingly monumental dimensions, often focused on the theme of emptiness, made tangible by a cavity that fills or by a material that empties. With his participation in the XLIV Venice Biennale in 1990, where he was awarded the "Premio Duemila", and the achievement of the "Turner Prize" in 1991, the artist achieved international fame. This was followed by exhibitions around the world, as well as public and private commissions. In 2004 the artist commissioned the Cloud Gate for Millennium Park in Chicago; a huge elliptical arch in polished and reflective steel, for the creation of which Kapoor took inspiration from liquid mercury. Important exhibitions of his works were held at the Fondazione Prada in Milan (1995), at the Hayward Gallery in London (1998), in Piazza del Plebiscito in Naples (1999), at the National Archaeological Museum of Naples (2003) at the Shiraishi Contemporary Art in Tokyo (2005), at the Gladstone Gallery in New York (2007). Anish Kapoor lives and works in London.
