“This is very dangerous territory, but I find the aspiration toward the Freudian womb to reach a lost self—which I think is implied in any spiritualism—interesting in terms of its relation to the sublime” (Anish Kapoor quoted in Artforum, New York, April 3, 2015, online).

The year in which the present work was executed is emblematic of a vital period for Anish Kapoor, when his achievements were exceptionally and ultimately recognized with the adornment of British Knighthood. Soon after his global status amplified with the creation of an Orbit tower for the London Olympics, the artist set forth a sensational amalgamation of his developed visual language, which theatricalized the body in pursuit of constructing devices that “auto-generated” spiritual experience. Here a radiant shape with glowing golden chroma, surrounded by vivid white, specifically reflects the artist’s interest in sculpting with materials that powerfully resonate, and hold ideas related to psychological and physiological memory. In its almost organic and utterly absorbing surface, Kapoor realizes his objective to confront the viewer with mysterious and unexpected presence by way of unified smoothness. Consistently interested in the juxtaposition between inside and outside, the artist in this piece creates a space for materialization of Post-Minimal objecthood, eliminating conscious attention to his process in order to open a path towards the unknown and invisibility. Standing before its womb-like curvature, the self dissipates, and a being traded becomes suspended in a reality of pure emotion and an encounter with a quiet, unknown expanse.

Anish Kapoor is a leading contemporary British-Indian artist working in both large and smaller-scale abstract sculpture. Throughout his career, Kapoor has worked with a variety of scales and with diverse materials including mirrors, stone, wax, and PVC, exploring both biomorphic and geometric forms with a particular interest in negative space. Born in 1954 in Bombay, Kapoor moved to London in the late 1970s, studying at both the Hornsey College of Art and Chelsea College of Arts. He first gained critical recognition for his work in the 1980s, with his metaphysical site-specific works. Kapoor was awarded the Turner Prize in 1991, named a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in 2003, and was granted Knighthood in 2013 for services to the visual arts. The artist currently lives in London, and his works are held by institutions such as The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the Tate in London, among others, in addition to numerous prestigious private collections.