Hayward Gallery · South Bank
Anish Kapoor
One of the most influential artists of our time returns to the Hayward, filling the entire building with awe-inspiring sculptures, paintings and immersive installations.
Walk into the Hayward and a red inflatable blocks the way. All of Nothing fills the first gallery and pushes on upstairs, where it bulges between two concrete columns like a water balloon wedged in railings, as Prospect put it.
Kapoor takes over the whole building, nearly 30 years after his first big survey here, in Ralph Rugoff's last show as director. Each room takes one strand: Vantablack voids, resin works like meat in clear plastic bags, mirror sculptures out on the rooftops, paintings, and the coral-red Ha Makom on the top floor.
The Guardian gave it five stars for "work that moves, frightens and stuns", and The Arts Desk's reviewer left "buzzing". He also found the Ritual Expiation heaps of intestine "far too literal". Prospect thought it unlikely to win over sceptics. The Hayward warns of works suggestive of blood and entrails. From 23 September to closing it stays open until 21.00.
Editor's pick
Kapoor's mirrored voids and raw pigment in the Hayward's brutalist rooms, where the concrete does as much work as the sculpture.
Look for
All of Nothing
The new inflatable fills the first gallery so completely that, in The Arts Desk's words, "your way is blocked".
Descent into Limbo
A 2.5-metre-deep hole lined with Vantablack, now fenced off with wires since a visitor in Portugal mistook it for a carpet and fell in in 2018.
Mount Moriah at the Gate of the Ghetto
An upside-down mountain hangs from the upstairs ceiling, looking like a vast hunk of raw meat.
The Vantablack niches
An ellipse, a square and a vulva shape are cut into the walls and lined with Vantablack, "a space full of what doesn't exist" in Kapoor's phrase.
Ha Makom
On the top floor, a red mound with the texture of coral spreads into every corner, with a rectangular doorway cut into its core.
Good for
- Evening Visits
- First-Timers
Skip if
Gore turns your stomach: the Hayward warns of works suggestive of blood and entrails.
