Anish Kapoor: Descension

Anish Kapoor was born in 1954 in Mumbai, India. He lives in London, where he moved in the early 1970s to attend art school. For more than 35 years, Kapoor has been among the most inventive and influential artists of his generation. He has created compelling and poetic bodies of work using a range of materials that include raw pigment, stone, stainless steel, synthetic polymer, resin, and wax. He also has a longstanding interest in the sculptural potential of water. Descension, presented for the first time in the United States, represents a breakthrough with this inherently challenging, slippery substance.

Like all of Kapoor’s works, Descension is the result of intensive research into material and process, exploring the potential of water to behave in surprising ways. The continuous swirling motion of this 26-foot-diameter liquid mass converges in a central vortex, as if rushing water is being sucked into the earth’s depths. We thus experience Kapoor’s abstract form on multiple levels. Its powerful physicality has a visceral and mesmerizing impact. Yet Descension also stimulates the imagination and suggests a social, cultural, and even mythic dimension.

Descension‘s operating hours are 9:00am – 9:00pm
Descension will not be operational on Tuesday, August 15, for routine maintenance.

This exhibition is curated by Public Art Fund Director and Chief Curator Nicholas Baume.

Anish Kapoor is one of the most influential sculptors working today. He was born in Bombay in 1954 and lives and works in London. He studied at Hornsey College of Art (1973–77) followed by postgraduate studies at Chelsea School of Art, London (1977–78). Recent major solo exhibitions include Museo d’Arte Contemporanea di Roma (MACRO), Rome (2016); Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo (MUAC), Mexico City (2016); Château de Versailles, France (2015); The Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center, Moscow (2015); Sak?p Sabanc? Museum, Istanbul (2013); Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin (2013); Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (2012); Le Grand Palais, Paris (2011) and the Royal Academy of Arts, London (2009). He represented Britain at the 44th Venice Biennale (1990), for which he was awarded the Premio Duemila. He won the Turner Prize in 1991 and has honorary fellowships from the London Institute and Leeds University (1997), the University of Wolverhampton (1999), the Royal Institute of British Architecture (2001) and the University of Oxford (2014). His major permanent commissions include Cloud Gate (2004) for the Millennium Park in Chicago and Orbit for the London 2012 Olympic Park. In 2013 Ark Nova,, the world’s first inflatable concert hall, was launched for the Lucerne Festival in Japan. He was elected Royal Academician in 1999, awarded the Premium Imperiale in 2011 and the Padma Bhushan in 2012. He was knighted in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2013.