As former Bombay boy Anish Kapoor exhibits for the first time in India, we look back at his career and work
Kapoor on ‘Shooting into the Corner’ In this particular situation, there is a relationship between all kinds of art, from Goya to Jackson Pollock, the cliché of throwing a bag of paint at the canvas. I made it originally back in Vienna [the home of Actionism]. Having made it, I realised that there’s a very strong relationship, created by the corner, with architecture. Without corners, there’s no architecture. That, in turn, relates to civilisation. Then of course, it’s very sexual. All these layers, the idea that a work’s simple gesture can stimulate, they interest me.
On the Mumbai Show The first time I saw [Mehboob Studios], it had a huge set in it with Aishwarya Rai acting. There was a three-storey house, built in the place. And I had to imagine a cannon here. It’s an amazing place and I’m very pleased to be working here. The important thing about a place like this is it being able to hold the scale.
On Violence
On Art and Architecture One of the great things about art is that it’s totally useless, and meaningless. Therefore it occupies a very odd and profound space culturally, one that allows for poetry, the sublime, love maybe, or something like it. It works the way our inner self works, between chaos and order, understanding and not understanding, poetry and meaningless. If you encumber a work or process with functionality, the big risk is that you lose that other much more subtle, gentle stuff. I don’t think I want to build a building that has a purpose to it. That’s the stuff that architects have to deal with. At the moment I’m making [ArcelorMittal] Orbit and that does have a lot of architectural crap in it, like toilets and cafés. It’s a nightmare. Absolutely tiresome. The architects can take that side of it.
(This story appears in the 17 December, 2010 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)