Anish Kapoor’s large-scale artworks are among the most recognisable on the planet. A tenacious affinity for drama, form and curvature characterise his sculptures, which hold court in public spaces, collections and public art institutions around the globe. Born in Mumbai in 1954, the artist is best known for his works which use curved metal, marble, wax or stainless steel to flirt with and materialise the sublime. His sculptures explore dualities such as disappearance and being, heaven and earth, the visible and the just-out-of-sight. Kapoor makes a strong case for spectacle in art, unearthing it from the pile of conditions that critics have deemed unfashionable and dusting it off to create works with monumental presence. Take for example his ‘Sky Mirror’ works: enormous concave ‘dishes’ made of reflective steel which are tilted upwards to reflect the sky, fashioning earthly portals to the clouds. Or Descension (2014), a perpetual whirlpool presented at the Kochi-Muziris Biennale (2014 - 2015). Kapoor’s works are unapologetically meant to be experienced by the public at large.

Despite the often-colossal size of his works, a strong relationship to the human body is rooted deep in Kapoor’s practice. He has spoken at length about his interest in the human psyche, and the orifices, apertures, caves, and tunnels present in his sculptures carry undeniably physical connotations. The artist took heat last year after a casual remark was interpreted as identifying his funnel-shaped Dirty Corner (2015), installed at the Palace of Versailles, as the ‘queen’s vagina’. Jackie Wullschlager writing for The Financial Times described it perhaps more intelligently as as an ‘erotic, feminised disruption to Le Nôtre’s masculine rigidities and tamed harmonies of lawn and hedge’. Kapoor himself shrugged the controversy off during a recent press conference in Seoul, pointing out that the majority of monuments and sculptures are plainly phallic, yet routinely escape public outrage.

Anish Kapoor grew up in India and spent some time in Israel before moving to England in 1972 to study sculpture at Hornsey College of Art and later Chelsea School of Art (now called Chelsea College of Arts). He represented Britain in the 44th Venice Biennale in 1990, winning the Premio Duemila. The following year he won the coveted Turner Prize. His most recognisable projects include the installation of Marsyas (2002) in the Turbine Hall at London’s Tate Modern (2002-2003), the exhibition of works he presented in the gardens of the Palace of Versailles (2015), and the 110-ton sculpture Cloud Gate (2004) which is forged of a seamless series of highly polished and reflective stainless steel plates and installed at AT&T Plaza at Millennium Park in Chicago. His honours are too plentiful to list in one place: six years ago, Kapoor was the first living artist to have a solo exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts and in 2013, he was knighted for services to visual arts. Earlier this year, he was announced as a recipient of the LennonOno Grant For Peace. Kapoor made news for a different reason recently by revealing his exclusive rights to Vantablack, a substance made of carbon nanotubes and the blackest substance known on earth. Many in the artistic community were outraged at Kapoor’s proprietorship of the material, which was originally developed for the aerospace and defence sectors. It remains to be seen exactly how far Kapoor will push its artistic potential.

Recent works by Kapoor are currently on view in the solo exhibition Gathering Clouds (31 August - 30 October 2016) at Kukje Gallery in Seoul. The show is titled after his series of circular concave ‘void’ works (so recognisable in the art fair circuit) which fill one room of the gallery. This grouping of works are painted with a flat shade of dark grey, resulting in an illusion of oscillating flatness and curvature. Also on view are works from Kapoor’s ‘Non Object’ series, which are, in the artist’s words, based on a ‘simple, stupid idea’. Larger-than-life mirrored prisms have been ‘twisted’ ninety degrees on their axes to become curving, mysterious forms in which reflections of the gallery space and its inhabitants seem to constantly shift. A series of smaller versions of these works are also included in the show. Ocula spoke with Kapoor over lunch on the occasion of the show’s opening in Seoul.