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Anish Kapoor: Descension - Public Art Fund
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Anish Kapoor Descension

Brooklyn Bridge Park, Pier 1
May 3 - October 1, 2017

About the Exhibition

Anish Kapoor was born in 1954 in Mumbai, India. He lives in London, where he moved in the early 1970s to attend art school. For more than 35 years, Kapoor has been among the most inventive and influential artists of his generation. He has created compelling and poetic bodies of work using a range of materials that include raw pigment, stone, stainless steel, synthetic polymer, resin, and wax. He also has a long-standing interest in the sculptural potential of water. Descension, presented for the first time in the United States, represents a breakthrough with this inherently challenging, slippery substance.

Like all of Kapoor’s works, Descension is the result of intensive research into material and process, exploring the potential of water to behave in surprising ways. The continuous swirling motion of this 26-foot-diameter liquid mass converges in a central vortex, as if rushing water is being sucked into the earth’s depths. We thus experience Kapoor’s abstract form on multiple levels. Its powerful physicality has a visceral and mesmerizing impact. Yet Descension also stimulates the imagination and suggests a social, cultural, and even mythic dimension.

Anish Kapoor: Descension is curated by Public Art Fund Director and Chief Curator Nicholas Baume.

Photo Gallery

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About the Artist

Anish Kapoor    View Profile

Anish Kapoor is one of the most influential sculptors working today. Born in Mumbai in 1954, he lives and works in London. He studied at Hornsey College of Art (1973–77), followed by postgraduate studies at Chelsea School of Art, London (1977–78). Major solo exhibitions include Museo d’Arte Contemporanea di Roma (MACRO), Rome (2016); Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo (MUAC), Mexico City (2016); Château de Versailles, France (2015); The Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center, Moscow (2015); Sakıp Sabancı Museum, Istanbul (2013); Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin (2013); Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (2012); Le Grand Palais, Paris (2011); and the Royal Academy of Arts, London (2009). He represented Britain at the 44th Venice Biennale (1990), for which he was awarded the Premio Duemila. He won the Turner Prize in 1991 and has honorary fellowships from the London Institute and Leeds University (1997), the University of Wolverhampton (1999), the Royal Institute of British Architecture (2001), and the University of Oxford (2014). His major permanent commissions include Cloud Gate (2004) for the Millennium Park in Chicago and Orbit for the London 2012 Olympic Park. In 2013 Ark Nova, the world’s first inflatable concert hall, was launched for the Lucerne Festival in Japan. He was elected Royal Academician in 1999, awarded the Premium Imperiale in 2011, and the Padma Bhushan in 2012. He was knighted in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2013.

(as of 2017)

Location

Brooklyn Bridge Park, Pier 1
Brooklyn Bridge Park, Pier 1

Presenting Sponsor
Bloomberg Philanthropies

40th Anniversary Leadership Circle
Jill & Peter Kraus, Jennifer & Matthew Harris, the Charina Endowment Fund, Elizabeth Fearon Pepperman & Richard C. Pepperman II, Jennifer & Jason New, Oliver’s Realty Group/RAL Development Services, The Silverweed Foundation, Elise & Andrew Brownstein, Marcia Dunn & Jonathan Sobel, Holly & Jonathan Lipton, Adrian Cheng, Wendy Fisher, Katherine Farley & Jerry Speyer, Agnes Gund, Patricia & Howard Silverstein, Stavros Niarchos Foundation, AllianceBernstein L.P., Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, The Marc Haas Foundation, and Sydney & Stanley S. Shuman.

Major support for Anish Kapoor: Descension is provided by Jill & Peter Kraus, Marcia Dunn & Jonathan Sobel, Gladstone Gallery, Lisson Gallery, Jennifer & Jason New, Oliver’s Realty Group/RAL Development Services, Regen Projects, Christie’s, Ed Cohen & Victoria Shaw, the Jeanne & Dennis Masel Foundation, Holly & Jonathan Lipton, Malcolm C. Nolen & Jennifer Napier Nolen, and Stephanie & Tim Ingrassia.

Special thanks to 1 Hotel Brooklyn Bridge.

This exhibition is also supported in part by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

Special thanks to the Office of the Mayor, Office of the Brooklyn Borough President, Department of Cultural Affairs, and Brooklyn Bridge Park.

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