Sculptor Anish Kapoor has closed on a $13.5-million apartment in Herzog & de Meuron’s Jenga-shaped high-rise at 56 Leonard Street, in New York’s downtown Tribeca neighborhood, reports Page Six. Writing in the Financial Times, Edwin Heathcote called the edifice “refreshing, startling, and just absurd enough.”
The Bombay-born, London-based artist, a 1991 Turner Prize winner, reportedly bought a 3,500-square-foot, four-bedroom, 4 ¹/₂-bath apartment on the 47th floor of the 60-story structure.
Other residents will benefit not only by having the artist as a neighbor; they’ll also get to enjoy an artwork the building’s owners have commissioned. One of Kapoor’s reflective stainless steel sculptures will be installed at the foot of the building.
It’s not the first time New Yorkers have been treated to a Kapoor sculpture on public view. The city saw a 35-foot wide Sky Mirror, one of the artist’s concave, reflective, disc-shaped works, sited at Rockefeller Center in 2006, courtesy of Public Art Fund.
Kapoor’s public works are widely beloved, including Cloud Gate in Chicago, which is often referred to as “the bean” for its shape.
Visitors take cover under Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Gate sculpture (also known as The Bean) as snow falls on Millennium Park on February 26, 2015 in Chicago, Illinois. Photo Scott Olson/Getty Images.
Kapoor has frequently been in the news this year. One of his large sculptures was repeatedly the target of vandalism when it was installed in the gardens of Versailles, prompting an accusation by the artist that the tagging was an inside job. He also incurred widespread anger when he purchased exclusive rights to use a new pigment called Vantablack, purportedly the world’s darkest black.
No word on whether the artist will paint his apartment with the pigment, which absorbs some 99.96 percent of light.