Artist Anish Kapoor creates free exhibition to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Liverpool Cathedral. Tony McDonough reports

Anish Kapoor is bringing his artwork to Liverpool Cathedral

A free special exhibition by artist Anish Kapoor will help celebrate the 100th anniversary of Liverpool Cathedral and opens later this week.

Running from Saturday, August 10 to Sunday, September 15, Monadic Singularity is Kapoor’s first solo show in a UK cathedral and his first major solo exhibition in Liverpool since his 1983 exhibit at the Walker Art Gallery.

Since then he has become world-celebrated for his innovative and thought-provoking works. Since exhibiting his seminal pigment sculptures in the early 1980s, he has gone on to create artworks that traverse traditional painting, sculpture and architecture.

Many of his public works have become iconic landmarks such as Cloud Gate (2004) (known affectionately as The Bean) in Millennium Park, Chicago, Nottingham Playhouse’s Sky Mirror (2001) and Temenos (2010) in Middlesbrough.

Featuring works spanning the past 25 years, including the architecturally scaled sculpture never before seen in the UK, Sectional Body Preparing for Monadic Singularity (2015), this exhibition offers the opportunity to experience the diversity of sculptural languages that Kapoor’s art embraces in dialogue with the cathedral’s spectacular gothic architecture.

The main space will feature a breathtaking kinetic wax sculpture, while additional works displayed across the cathedral creating a unique experience in an environment so redolent with contemplation and reverie.

This landmark show is a must-see for art lovers and spiritual seekers alike and a highlight in Liverpool Cathedral’s year-long centenary celebrations, commemorating its consecration in 1924.

Anish Kapoor said: “To show works in Liverpool Cathedral is complex. It is a space that is alive both with the physical and spiritual. As such it is resonant with a powerful sense of body and the disembodied.

“The works that I have chosen to show in the cathedral are situated similarly between body and materiality and geometric immaterial which I refer to as the non-object.

“It is my hope that this conjunction of object and non-object here in this immense and potent space will be cause for reflection on the nature of religious experience and the human condition.”

Anish Kapoor’s exhbition will begin on August 10
Globally renowned artist Anish Kapoor. Picture by Jillian Edelstein

The exhibition is made possible by the support of Culture Liverpool and Liverpool BID Company, as well as Lisson Gallery and Boodles.

Hospitality is provided in partnership with Novotel Paddington Village and Hope Street Hotel. There has also been support from the Granada Foundation and supporters who wish to remain anonymous.

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The Very Reverend Dr Sue Jones, Dean of Liverpool, added “As we commemorate the centenary of our Cathedral’s consecration, it is a privilege to welcome the iconic Anish Kapoor to our iconic building and sacred space.

“Our Cathedral stands as a place of Encounter, and we invite everyone to experience Kapoor’s extraordinary art within our historic walls. This exhibition promises to be a profound meeting of creativity and spirituality, and we hope it inspires all who visit.”