Anish Kapoor

Anish Kapoor is an Indian-born British sculptor whose monumental works use saturated color, reflective surfaces, and ambiguous forms to reshape perceptions of space.

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Cloud Gate: A monumental stainless-steel sculpture in Chicago’s Millennium Park, shaped as a seamless reflective arch. Its curved mirror surface turns the city and its visitors into part of the work.
Anish Kapoor's pigment sculptures: Kapoor’s early sculptures use piles of brightly colored pigment to make solid forms appear to dissolve into color. Loose pigment absorbs edges and makes small objects seem spatially indeterminate.
Bombay: The former name of Mumbai, the Indian city where Kapoor was born in 1954. His early life in Bombay preceded his move to Britain and shaped his cross-cultural background.
ArcelorMittal Orbit: A monumental steel sculpture and observation tower in London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, designed by Kapoor and Cecil Balmond. The Olympic commission brought Kapoor’s sculptural language into a permanent public landmark.
Descent into Limbo: A 1992 installation by Kapoor featuring a dark circular pit painted to appear like a flat surface. The work makes an apparently solid floor seem to open into an unknowable depth.
Reflective sculpture: Sculpture that uses reflective surfaces to incorporate images of its surroundings into the work. Kapoor’s polished works use reflection to make viewers and architecture part of their visual field.
Hornsey College of Art: A London art school where Kapoor studied in the 1970s. Kapoor’s art education in London formed part of his transition into British sculpture.
Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park: A public park in east London built around venues for the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The park’s redevelopment provided the setting for the ArcelorMittal Orbit.
Marsyas: A 2002 Kapoor installation at Tate Modern consisting of a vast red PVC membrane stretched through the Turbine Hall. Its scale and vivid color transformed the museum’s industrial interior.
Vantablack: A coating made from vertically aligned carbon nanotubes that absorbs nearly all incident visible light. Kapoor’s exclusive artistic rights to one version of the material prompted debate over access and ownership.