Listen to me carefully, you bunch of snobs, it’s high time we talk about Anish Kapoor (born in 1954), the artist who has been making us oscillate between ecstasy and exasperation for nearly half a century. Let me tell you why this magician of space, this manipulator of perceptions, deserves our attention—even if some of you would rather gaze at your Louis XVI family portraits while convincing yourselves that art ended with Boucher.
Anish Kapoor stands as a colossus with feet of stainless steel—and I mean that literally. It’s no coincidence that this son of an Indian father and a Jewish Iraqi mother has risen to the pinnacle of the global art scene. But let’s pause for a moment to consider what truly sets him apart, beyond the dizzying numbers of the art market and the sweaty auctioneers.
The first defining feature of Kapoor’s work is his obsessive relationship with void and space. And when I say obsessive, I’m not referring to the kind of fixation some collectors have for their latest €50,000 acquisition they don’t even understand. No, I’m talking about a profound philosophical quest reminiscent of Martin Heidegger’s concepts of being and nothingness. Take Cloud Gate (2006) in Chicago, nicknamed “The Bean” by those who must reduce everything to their level of culinary understanding. This 100-ton polished steel masterpiece isn’t just a selfie spot for influencers hungry for likes. It’s a meditation on the void that contains everything, a reflection—both literal and metaphorical—on our place in urban space. Maurice Merleau-Ponty would likely have an epiphany in front of this work, which perfectly embodies his phenomenology of perception.
When Kapoor creates these reflective surfaces that distort and engulf space, he’s not merely playing with our senses like a Sunday magician. He forces us to confront our perception of reality, to question what we think we know about the world around us. Here, the experience is visceral, physical, impossible to reduce to an Instagram JPEG.
The second characteristic of his work is his revolutionary use of color as material. And here, my dear friends, we enter territory that would make Yves Klein tremble in his grave. Kapoor doesn’t just apply color to a surface like a Sunday painter following YouTube tutorials. No, he turns color into a physical entity, an almost mystical presence. His monochrome works, particularly those using the deep red that has become his signature, are not mere stylistic exercises. They are manifestations of what Gaston Bachelard called “matter-duration”, a fusion of substance and time.
Take Svayambh (2007), the massive red wax form that moves slowly through exhibition spaces like a bloodied leviathan. This work isn’t just an impressive technical feat—though it undeniably is. It’s a meditation on time, transformation, and the violence inherent in all creation. Here, color is not just an aesthetic attribute; it is the work itself, its flesh, its blood, its raison d’être. This is what Gilles Deleuze would call a “bloc of sensations”, an experience that transcends mere representation to become an autonomous reality.
And don’t get me started on his use of Vantablack, the material that absorbs 99.965% of visible light. When Kapoor obtained exclusive rights for its artistic use, some cried scandal, decrying the privatization of color. But these critics miss the point: it’s not about possession; it’s about what you do with it. And what Kapoor does is create visual abysses that challenge our very understanding of what it means to see. It’s as if Kazimir Malevich had access to 21st-century technology—his Black Square on a White Ground seems almost timid in comparison.
Kapoor’s impact on contemporary art is comparable to Richard Serra’s for monumental sculpture or James Turrell’s for light art. But where Serra imposes and Turrell illuminates, Kapoor transcends. His installations aren’t just placed in space; they transform, distort, and reinvent it. This is what Peter Sloterdijk might call an artistic “spherology”, an exploration of the spaces we inhabit and the bubbles we create around ourselves.
Kapoor creates experiences that resist digital reproduction. In a world where everything is instantly shareable, likable, and consumable, his works demand physical presence, direct confrontation. They remind us that art is not just an image on a screen but an experience that engages our entire being. This is what Roland Barthes would call the “punctum” of the work, that detail that pierces us, transfixes us, transforms us.
Take Memory (2008) at the Guggenheim. This monumental corten steel installation, which seems to simultaneously emerge from and sink into the museum walls, isn’t just a technical tour de force. It’s a meditation on memory itself, on how our recollections occupy mental space, distort, and transform. It’s Jacques Derrida in three dimensions, a physical deconstruction of our certainties about space and perception.
And what about his more recent works, like Descension (2014), the swirling vortex of black water that seems to swallow the museum floor itself? This is Georges Bataille in action, a physical representation of the informe, that force defying our attempts to categorize and order the world. It’s art that doesn’t just represent chaos but creates it, controls it, transforms it into an aesthetic experience.
Kapoor also creates works that operate on multiple levels simultaneously. On an immediate, visceral level, they are spectacular, seductive, impossible to ignore. But the more time you spend with them, the more layers of meaning emerge, resonating with art history, philosophy, and science. This is what Theodor Adorno would call the enigmatic character of art, its ability to be simultaneously obvious and impenetrable.
His use of materials reflects this complexity. Polished steel isn’t just high-tech material; it’s a means of questioning the nature of representation, as Velázquez did in Las Meninas but with 21st-century tools. Red wax isn’t just a sculptural medium; it’s a metaphor for transformation, mutability, and the violence inherent in all creation. This is what Joseph Beuys might have done with access to modern technology.
But make no mistake: Kapoor isn’t merely an heir to these traditions. He reinvents, transforms, and pushes them to their limits. When he creates immersive, monumental installations like Leviathan (2011) at the Grand Palais in Paris, he doesn’t just fill space; he reinvents it. This is what Michel Foucault would call a heterotopia, a space existing both within and outside everyday reality.
His work with architecture, particularly in projects like the Orbit Tower in London, officially named the ArcelorMittal Orbit for the 2012 London Olympics, shows his understanding of what Rem Koolhaas calls “bigness”—that scale where architecture becomes something else, transcending mere function or aesthetics. Kapoor’s art doesn’t shy away from ambition; it embraces and redefines it.
And perhaps this is Kapoor’s true significance: his ability to create art that doesn’t ask for permission to exist. Art that asserts itself not through brute force but through its power to transform our perception of the world. This is what Guy Debord would call a détournement of the spectacle—but one that doesn’t deny aesthetic pleasure, instead embracing and transcending it.
So yes, Kapoor can be criticized for his monopoly on Vantablack, the spectacular nature of some of his works, or his dominance in the art market. But to focus on these is to miss the point: he is one of the few contemporary artists creating works that fundamentally change how we see the world. And isn’t that the role of art?
Kapoor reminds us of the importance of direct, physical experience with art. His works are manifestos for art that cannot merely be seen but must be lived, felt, and experienced. Anish Kapoor isn’t simply an artist who creates extraordinary objects—though he does that with unparalleled mastery. He is a philosopher using space, matter, and light as others use words. His works are questions posed to our perception, challenges to our understanding of the world, invitations to see differently.
And if some persist in seeing only funhouse mirrors and blobs of color in his work, so be it. As Marcel Duchamp said, it is the viewers who make the paintings. In Kapoor’s case, it’s those who dare to truly look who discover entire universes within his works. The rest can return to their family portraits, pretending art hasn’t evolved in three centuries.