ABSTRACT
Sculptor, painter and printmaker. Born in Bombay, India, the son of an Indian father and an Iraqi Jewish mother, he moved to London in 1971, studying at Hornsey College of Art (1973-7) and Chelsea College of Art (1977-8). He taught at Wolverhampton Polytechnic (1979-82), and was Artist-in-Residence at Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool (1982). His distinctive sculpture is in part inspired by a 1979 visit to India where he saw heaps of intensely coloured ground pigment being sold. He began exhibiting in group shows with 'Art into Landscape' at the Serpentine Gallery (1974). He was represented in the important exhibition at Whitechapel Art Gallery 'British Sculpture in the Twentieth Century, Part Two: Symbol and Imagination' (1981): As if to Celebrate, I Discovered a Mountain Blooming with Red Flowers, now in the Tate Gallery, is of this period. 1000 Names (1981) consists of five separated elements in plaster and wood, sited on the floor and against the wall, vibrantly coloured in matt white, yellow and red powder, resembling some ritual space. He was also included in 'The Sculpture Show' at the Hayward and Serpentine Galleries (1983). His first solo exhibition was held at Galerie Patrice Alexandre, Paris (1980), with his first London show the following year, at Coracle Press. He exhibited regularly at Lisson Gallery from 1982, with other solo shows held at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, in the USA and in Europe. He represented Great Britain and was awarded the Primo Duemilla at the 1990 Venice Biennale. His new work there, The Healing of St Thomas, was a wound-like fissure in the wall of the pavilion itself, 30-cm long, impregnated with red pigment. Also exhibited at the Biennale was Void Field (1989), consisting of a group of enormous, elemental stone blocks, each cut roughly flat on top, and each bearing a precise and disturbing black hole in that smooth surface. Kapoor was the winner of the Turner Prize (1991). Another modification of architectural space was When I am Pregnant (1992) at the De Pont Foundation for Contemporary Art, Tilburg, a subtly bulging form in the white gallery wall, complemented in 1995 with a rectangular aluminium plate inserted into the wall opposite. In 1998 he received a major retrospective at the Tate Gallery, which holds many examples of his work. His At the Edge of the World (1998, fibreglass) is a red dome 8 m in diameter suspended above the viewer to give a 360-degree horizon of saturated colour. Parabolic Waters (2000) is set beside the Thames at Greenwich, containing 50 tonnes of coloured water spinning at such a velocity that it forms a mesmerizing concave mirror in a vast basin. His work, balanced between Western and Eastern culture, is designed to act directly on the senses, to excite deep psychological responses.
