Anish Kapoor
16 March – 12 October 2010
Avenida Abandoibarra, 2
48001 Bilbao
BIZKAIA, Spain
Sponsored by Iberdrola
This is the first large-scale solo exhibition in Spain dedicated to the work of Anish Kapoor, one of the most critically-acclaimed and influential artists of his generation.
Conceived in close collaboration with the artist, this exhibition includes work from Kapoor’s 30-year career from the 1970s to the present.
One highlight of the exhibition is Shooting into the Corner, in which projectiles of red wax are fired into a corner of the gallery by a cannon.
The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao is delighted to present the first large-scale solo exhibition in Spain dedicated to the work of Anish Kapoor. Over the past thirty years, Kapoor has gained international acclaim as one of the most influential and significant artists of his generation. His exploration of form and space and his use of color and material have profoundly influenced the course of contemporary sculpture.
Organized by the Royal Academy of Arts in London and the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, the exhibition, conceived and installed in close collaboration with the artist, offers insight into Kapoor’s working method and creative process, and includes twenty major works from several series spanning the 1970s to the present.
Installed throughout the Museum’s second floor, the exhibition presents a series of visual and psychological experiences that draw us into the artist’s search for a poetic sculptural language.
This exhibition originated at the Royal Academy of Arts where it was curated by Jean de Loisy, independent curator, and Adrian Locke, Exhibitions Curator, Royal Academy of Arts. It was installed at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao under the curatorial direction of Alexandra Munroe, Senior Curator of Asian Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.
Pigment Works
The earliest sculptural series on view in the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao are composed of powdered pigment applied to geometric forms that seem to emerge from the Museum’s walls and floor.
On the void
Following the early pigment pieces, Kapoor decided to excavate the object. Adam (1988–89) and Untitled (1990) exhibited here, are two key examples of Kapoor’s early exploration of the void. The notion that emptiness can make a space more full was a key conceptual discovery for Kapoor.
Yellow, 1999
Yellow (1999) is a monumental work in which Kapoor uses color as an instrument to embrace and subvert form. A great gaping belly recedes deep into the yellow wall.
Non-Objects
A large Gehry gallery is the venue for an installation of polished stainless steel sculptures that only seem to come to life as real objects when its visitors’ active images are reflected on their surfaces.
My Red Homeland, 2003
A vast landscape of red, My Red Homeland (2003) consists of a metal blade driven by a motor which moves almost imperceivably around an open circular container filled with twenty-five tons of blood-red wax, giving viewers the impression of an optical illusion, as though the mass of red wax were moving from the inside to the outside of the installation.
Shooting into the Corner, 2009
This work was first exhibited in Vienna, the city in which Freud established psychoanalysis. Relentless and repetitive, a cannon is fired at twenty-minute intervals into a corner. The shells of wax will accumulate in the corner over the course of the exhibition, eventually amassing around thirty tones.
Greyman Cries, Shaman Dies, Billowing Smoke, Beauty Evoked, 2008–09
The most recent of Kapoor’s works, this body of cement sculptures is generated from a new and specifically developed technological process.
Tall Tree & the Eye, 2009
Positioned in front of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao at the North Pond adjoining the Nervion River, is the luminous work Tall Tree & the Eye (2009). Consisting of almost 80 stainless steel spheres, Tall Tree & the Eye multiplies its surroundings producing reflections that are fractal.
