The Sainsbury Centre is delighted to announce a new East End gallery display of two alabaster stone sculptures by Anish Kapoor: Involute, 2017 (pictured) and Untitled, 2010. This is presented as part of a major exhibition on show across the grounds and historic interiors of Houghton Hall and would not be possible without the support of the Houghton Arts Foundation.
Anish Kapoor is considered one of the most important sculptors working today. Born in 1954, Kapoor started exhibiting his seminal pigment works in the early 80s and rose to prominence as part of the New British Sculpture movement. This generation of sculptors found a renewed interest in traditional materials long associated with sculpture and techniques such as carving in stone.
Kapoor has gone on to work in a diverse range of materials, from wax, PVC and silicone to fibreglass, steel and cement, to create unique and often breath-taking sculptural languages. He has exhibited around the globe and has become internationally recognised for his often large scale works that traverse the boundaries of sculpture and architecture. Works such as Marsyas (2002) exhibited in Tate’s Turbine Hall and Cloud Gate (2004) in Millennium Park Chicago, one of the most iconic pieces of public art created in recent times, iterate Kapoor’s enduring concern with the states of absence and presence, form and non-form.
The two alabaster works that Kapoor has selected to show at the Sainsbury Centre have been created through the carving process of negative space into positive form; they demonstrate Kapoor’s interest in the void, of deep dark space and the interior state of the object.
The sculptures also resonate with works in the Sainsbury Centre Collection, such as vessel forms from the ancient world of Egyptian and Cycladic or the modernist abstractions and biomorphic forms of Eduardo Chillida, Jean Arp and Henry Moore. They will be displayed in the central bay of the East End gallery until 1 November.
Lord Cholmondeley of Houghton Hall says: “We are delighted to be able to support the installation of these beautiful works by Anish Kapoor, continuing the link between the Sainsbury Centre and the Houghton Arts Foundation. We hope that visitors to the Centre including UEA students – may wish to come on to Houghton to see the largest exhibition of Kapoor’s outdoor works ever mounted in the UK.”
Calvin Winner, Head of Collections at the Sainsbury Centre, says: “Kapoor is a world-renowned sculptor and it is a great privilege to present his work at the Sainsbury Centre for the first time. We hope visitors will enjoy seeing these sculptures alongside the accompanying exhibition at Houghton Hall.”
The works are free to view at the Sainsbury Centre. Visit sainsburycentre.ac.uk, email [email protected] or call 01603 593199 Monday–Friday, 9am–5pm for visitor enquiries.
Anish Kapoor at Houghton Hall runs from 12 July to 1 November 2020.