Review: ANISH KAPOOR : Royal Academy

Anish Kapoor 

Anish Kapoor gives us an insight into his visual language through form and colour in a voluptuous exhibition marking (as he explains) not a retrospective but a large scale solo show of work both current and past.
Walking through the courtyard of the magnificent Royal Academy you are struck by a monumental reflective sculpture bubbling up to the sky titled Tall Tree and the Eye 2009. You would think that it might be hard to top this sneak preview but by stepping inside the grand architecture of the RA,which has played host to many of the leading exhibitions of the late 20th century, you are immediately startled as to how well suited Kapoor’s work is to the surrounds.
This is a provocative exhibition that squeezes, amongst other things, 40 tonnes of red wax through the arches and onto the walls of this hallowed gallery. A piece titled Svayambh 2007 consists of a giant chunk of Gouda red wax, which creeps almost unseen to the eye from room to room on a conveyer belt.
 The exhibition is also a show case for several of his convex mirrored sculptures which use the room and stray figures as an ever changing configuration of light and shadow.
Kapoor’s earlier installation works are also on view including White sand, Red millet, Many flowers, 1982, is a sculpture made up of shapes and powered pigments so delicate that it looks like they could blow away with a soft sneeze
There is also an event or performance piece which takes place each day titled
Shooting into the Corner, 2008-09. Here more red wax is blasted out of a cannon splattering over the walls and ornate plaster work of the gallery. (see video:  http://www.artlyst.com )
ArtLyst highly recommends this exhibition not only for the entertaining almost fairground attraction value and presentation of pieces but also for the more sublime works like Yellow 1999 and the white on white When I am pregnant from 1992.