Anish Kapoor’s ‘mad, mad project’

Anish Kapoor’s ‘mad, mad project’

The studio of Anish Kapoor occupies a long stretch of an anodyne south London road. The British-Indian artist started with one space 25 years ago and, as his fame and wealth have accrued, so have his workrooms, each door allowing access to a different aspect of his oeuvre – and possibly his mind. In one large high-ceilinged hall, you can’t move for ginormous red splodgy paintings, fervent excrescences that remind you of hell, or someone’s guts. In the next, more confined, some of Kapoor’s assistants (more than 20 people work here) execute more technical work.

The one after that privileges another Kapoor signature, his mirror pieces, large concave glasses that discombobulate you as you peer into them. Then there’s a chamber devoted to all things black (red is Kapoor’s longstanding love, but black is his big crush) before finally, through an entrance stacked with hundreds of canvases, we reach a moment of calm: a vast space at least 40ft tall, with high windows letting in crisp winter light. Down below are 10 or so large pictures, and a wide wooden desk absolutely submerged in paint. 

“Here is my easel,” says Kapoor, now 67, with a trademark chuckle that betrays both good humour and