A major new site-specific sculpture installation by leading international artist Anish Kapoor will be on view at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum from October 21, 2009, to March 28, 2010 as part of the Deutsche Bank Series at the Guggenheim and as part of the museum’s 50th Anniversary program.

"Anish Kapoor: Memory" is the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation’s first collaboration with the artist, who is celebrated for his expansive and profound aesthetic vision and this work is the 14th in a series of artist projects commissioned by Deutsche Bank and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation for the Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin.

Since the late 1970s, Kapoor has extended the scope and language of contemporary sculpture through his explorations of scale, color, and the concept of the void. Constructed of Cor-Ten steel - a new material for the artist - 'Memory' is a milestone for Kapoor. The work is composed of 154 Cor-Ten steel tiles, measures 14.5 x 8.97 x 4.48 metres overall, and weighs 24 tons. It's form nearly fills the gallery it occupies, challenging and altering the museum’s architecture through its improbable scale and proportions. The title, “Memory,” alludes to how visitors encounter the work, which can never be seen in its entirety and remains largely hidden from view.

Compressed into one of the Guggenheim Museum’s annex galleries, the sculpture’s sheer volume is foreboding, as its peripheries glance against the gallery walls and ceiling with the utmost precision. From within, Memory’s seamless eight-millimeter-thick steel tiles, meticulously manufactured to ensure absolute darkness inside, read as one continuous form. Viewable only through a two-square-metre aperture, these seamless tiles create the boundless void of Memory’s cavernous interior. A staircase leading from the adjacent gallery offers a view through the aperture. The precise wedging of this hole into the gallery wall defines a flat, two-dimensional plane that, from a certain distance, appears as a painting rather than an opening. Kapoor’s interest in this pictorial effect is best reflected in his frequently quoted statement, “I am a painter working as a sculptor.”

Kapoor’s earlier large-scale site-specific installations, such as Taratantara (1999), Marsyas (2002), and Svayambh (2007), succeeded in creating new perceptions of space through their distortions of scale. Continuing these types of distortions, Memory’s enormous scale prevents viewers from perceiving a gestalt. The work divides the gallery space into several distinct viewing areas, which can be approached either from the museum ramps, elevator banks, or the adjacent gallery. Visitors to the Guggenheim Museum are compelled to navigate different sections of the building as each vantage point offers only a glimpse of either the sculpture’s exterior form or its interior shell.

This processional method of viewing the sculpture is an intrinsic aspect of the work. Kapoor asks visitors to connect and construct the fragmented images of Memory retained in their minds and thus exert more effort in their acts of seeing. Kapoor calls this process creating a “mental sculpture.” As a 24-ton volume of Cor-Ten steel, Memory is vast, ineffable, raw, and industrial.