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Museum of Contemporary Art Australia announces Anish Kapoor

Museum of Contemporary Art Australia announces Anish Kapoor, the first major exhibition in Australia of the Mumbai-born, London-based artist, part of the Sydney International Art Series supported by the NSW Government throught Destination NSW. OOpen 20 December 2012 – 1 April 2013.

This unique exhibition, which is the first major presentation of the artist’s work in Australia, includes works from the early stages of Kapoor’s career to the present day. It explores the artist’s continual experimentation across a variety of materials including clay, plastic, pigment, steel and wax to create works of great visual power and emotional impact.


Anish Kapoor My Red Homeland 2003 installation view, Kunsthaus Bregenz, 2003 wax and oil-based paint, steel arm, motor Image courtesy and © the artist Photograph: Nic Tenwiggenhorn

Highlights include one of the artist’s most ambitious works for a gallery, Memory (2008), commissioned by Deutsche Bank in consultation with the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation for the Deutsche Guggenheim. In the work’s first presentation in the Southern Hemisphere, Memory completely fills the MCA’s sizable Level 3 Gallery as if squeezed between the white walls. Viewers experience the rust-coloured bulbous structure from several angles including a window that looks into the cavernous interior space. By restricting the ability to view the whole work from a single point, Kapoor challenges the public to imagine the object in its entirety by piecing together memories of the work from different locations.

Another highlight is Void (1989), a large concave shape coated in a deep blue pigment that toys with perception. The shape changes from a convex to a concave form depending on where the viewer is situated, whilst the colour of the piece disrupts the ability to determine the object’s true proportions.

The MCA’s spacious Level 1 North Gallery is the ideal setting for the enormous wax sculpture My Red Homeland (2003). In this monumental circular sculpture, a large motorised steel blade slowly cuts a course through 25 tons of wax and Vaseline mixed with a deep red pigment. Over the period of an hour the blade traces the circumference of the structure, which measures 12 metres in diameter, endlessly dissecting and re-shaping the wax into new forms. Drawing associations with organic material such as blood, My Red Homeland stimulates not only an emotional but also a physical response.
The exhibition also comprises a selection of the early works that first brought Anish Kapoor to prominence. Created following a short trip to India, 1000 Names (1979–80) consists of primary coloured geometric forms produced using brightly coloured powdered pigments placed on the floor or situated on the wall.

Anish Kapoor was born on 12 March 1954 in Mumbai (Bombay). He moved to London in the early 1970s where he has lived and worked ever since. He studied art at Hornsey College of Art (1973-1977) and at Chelsea School of Art (1977-1978). His first solo exhibition was held at Patrice Alexandre in Paris in 1980. He quickly gained international attention and acclaim for a series of solo exhibitions at venues including: Tate Gallery, London (1990-01); Tel Aviv Museum of Art (2003); Fondazione Prada, Milano (1995); Hayward Gallery, London (1998); BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead (1999); Piazza del Plebiscito, Naples (1999); Kunsthaus Bregenz (2003); MAC Grand-Hornu, Belgium (2004); Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples (2004); Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin (2008) MAK, Vienna (2009); Royal Academy of Arts, London
(2009); Pinchuk Arts Centre, Kiev (2010); and Guggenheim Bilbao (2010).

Museum of Contemporary Art Australia
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