Almost three decades after the Hayward Gallery hosted Anish Kapoor’s first institutional show, the London venue has again been filled with the British-Indian artist’s work (until 18 October). The exhibition includes several new works that follow the tradition of his best-known pieces, from highly polished mirror sculptures and impossibly black voids to gallery-busting red inflatables. The show is accompanied by two books, the catalogue and the first publication dedicated to Kapoor’s photography. Here, the Hayward Gallery’s publisher, Mary Richards, has selected five key books to help us better understand Kapoor’s five-decade career.
Anish Kapoor (1998) catalogue, with contributions from Homi K. Bhabha and Pier Luigi Tazzi
“This book accompanied Anish Kapoor’s previous Hayward exhibition, his first major show in a UK gallery. The text ‘Anish Kapoor: Making Emptiness’ by Homi K. Bhabha is as insightful and philosophical as Kapoor’s drive to make sculpture.”
Anish Kapoor (2009) catalogue, with contributions from Norman Rosenthal, Homi K. Bhabha and Jean de Loisy
“Kapoor’s last major UK survey was at the Royal Academy and featured the iconic Shooting into the Corner (2008-09), which literally shot crimson pellets onto the gallery walls, traversing the boundary between painting, performance and sculpture. The book features new texts alongside an anthology of essays written over the years; it’s an excellent place to begin.”
Anish Kapoor: Versailles (2015) catalogue, with contributions from Alfred Paquement, Julia Kristeva, Richard Leydier and Jean de Loisy
“This book was produced for Kapoor’s commission at the Palace of Versailles; in order to read it, one has to physically cut the pages, which arrive fully sealed. The book was the first to feature a selection of Kapoor’s photographs, and the first to include an interview with the artist by Julia Kristeva.”
Anish Kapoor: Works, Thoughts, Experiments (2018) catalogue, with contributions from Suzanne Cotter and Christopher Bollas
“This catalogue of Kapoor’s exhibition at Serralves, Porto, in 2018 takes a Time’s Arrow-esque approach to Kapoor’s studio practice, beginning with new shots of large-scale works being fabricated and ending with intimate studio shots from the 1970s. This visual essay of an artist’s evolving studio practice is fascinating and rewards repeated looking.”
Anish Kapoor: Painting (2022), with contributions from Homi K. Bhabha, Greg Hilty, Emma Ridgway, Martin Kemp, Chris Knight, Anish Kapoor and Julia Kristeva
“Kapoor’s paintings are perhaps not as well-known as his sculptures, and this is the first book to explore them in depth. In their different ways, the texts explore recurring motifs—voids, wounds, viscera, mountains—and highlight the ways Kapoor interrogates the spaces and limits of painting and sculpture.”
• Anish Kapoor, Hayward Gallery Publishing, 240pp, £45 (hb); Way Out Way In: Photographs by Anish Kapoor, Hayward Gallery Publishing, 256pp, £25 (hb)