(b Bombay [Mumbai], 12 Mar. 1954). British abstract sculptor, born in India, the son of a Hindu father and Jewish-Iraqi mother. He settled in London in 1973. Although his sculpture is not obviously indebted to his Asian background, he feels an affinity with the spirituality of Indian art: ‘I don't want to make sculpture about form…I wish to make sculpture about belief, or about passion, about experience that is outside of material concern.
’ His early work was predominantly in fairly lightweight materials, including wood and mixed media, and was often brightly coloured, but in the late 1980s he changed direction. Having acquired a large ground-floor studio where he could handle heavy materials, he turned to working in stone. Typically his sculptures from this time have consisted of large, rough-hewn blocks; he has also made smooth, organic pieces in polished metal. Kapoor was Britain's representative at the Venice Biennale in 1990 and in 1991 he was awarded the Turner Prize. He has carried out numerous public commissions, often working on a very large scale, as with Cloud Gate (2004, Millennium Park, Chicago), an enormous curved structure made of polished stainless steel plates that reflect their surroundings like a distorting funfair mirror.
Text Source: The Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford University Press)