Anish Kapoor Is a One-Trick Illusionist
What does the British artist have to offer beyond monumental scale and costly optical illusions?
LONDON — Monumentality is a powerful tool for Anish Kapoor; his immense sculptures in his signature red and chrome palette inspire awe when dropped among, say, the grounds of Houghton Hall, Norfolk, or Millennium Park, Chicago, reducing viewers to mere ants. But at his show at the Hayward Gallery, his illusions of monumentality fall short.
The most impressive piece, “All of Nothing” (2026), a giant red blood cell, inflates and fills the hangar-like space but somehow makes its surroundings feel small by comparison, foreshadowing what follows.
The following gallery displays the artist’s so-called greatest hits: clever one-trick illusions that hinge on creating optical confusion. On view are artworks from Kapoor’s controversial Vantablack series from the last thirty years, which inadvertently shows a decline in creativity over time. In “Untitled,” a tomb-like sandstone monolith is punctured by an inviting-but-not-black doorway, while “Descent into Limbo” (both 1992) emulates a cartoon-like hole in the floor. Nearby is another untitled work from 2026: a pseudo-rip in the wall, a half-baked thought that one could imagine was the curator’s solution to filling the gallery space. The wall text quotes Kapoor’s musings that a void is “a space full of what doesn’t exist” (well, quite) and “Perhaps the darkest black is the black we carry within ourselves.” In short, you paid to see this; you work it out.
Punctuating the walls are reflective mirrors, a mainstay on the art fair circuit and the source of Kapoor’s financial success that has allowed him to create the large-scale work he’s known for (and gain exclusivity of the world’s darkest material). Outside on the veranda is “Tsunami III” (2025), a reflective stainless steel wibbly curve that required a crane to install, reminding us that big, shiny, and monochromatic are his bread and butter.
