Bombay-born London-based sculptor Anish Kapoor has joined the exclusive group of artists chosen to show their works in the fabled halls and on the hallowed grounds of Versailles, the former royal residence outside Paris. Kapoor’s show, on view from June through October 2015, follows well-received exhibitions of contemporary art at the site by Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami, Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos, and French artist Xavier Veilhan.
“It’s not easy to choose an artist for Versailles,” Catherine Pégard, director of the 17th-century château, recently told the The New York Times. “It’s not a museum, a gallery or an exhibition space,” she added. Kapoor was selected, she explained, “because he has something particular to say in this setting.”
Kapoor, who won the Turner Prize in 1991, and the Praemium Imperiale in 2011, has established a reputation for awe-inspiring, large-scale public installations, beginning with the monumental Marsyas, his well-received, site-specific work for the Tate’s cavernous Turbine Hall in London in 2002.