Obscure Reflections and Distorted Realities: Anish Kapoor at the Leeum Samsung

Prior to last weekend, I didn’t know much about Anish Kapoor, an Indian artist residing in England, but after hearing many positive reviews, I visited the Leeum/Samsung Museum of Art to see his solo exhibition. I’ve been anxious to return to this particular museum ever since I viewed Do Ho Suh’s impressive solo, “Home Within Home,” last April. I had a feeling that Kapoor, the first artist to fill the entire gallery space and outdoor sculpture garden, would be equally as visually mind-blowing and thought provoking. Written in the introduction to Kapoor’s work on the Leeum Samsung website: “This exhibition is Kapoor’s first major museum show in East Asia, and includes his most important works dating from the early years of his career to the present. The Ground Gallery houses Kapoor’s acclaimed early pigment works, as well as his Void works, large-scale monochromatic works and stainless-steel sculptures that cross the boundary between the material and the immaterial. Installed in the Black Box are works that embody the principle of the “auto-generated,” which transform the gallery into a vast space of creation and formation. The exhibition is the first to occupy the museum’s entire exhibition space including the outdoor sculpture garden, [...]