Mother as Mountain 1985

Anish Kapoor created Mother as Mountain as an installation piece, using vibrant color and a strong geometric form. It's difficult to put a date on it, since Kapoor's artistic practice is ongoing. The sculpture's striking red pigment and mountain-like shape evokes ideas of fertility and the maternal. Born in India and working in Britain, Kapoor's art often grapples with cultural hybridity. In this piece, the artist combines Eastern spiritualism with Western artistic practices to create a space for meditation. The installation’s title suggests an interest in linking concepts of motherhood and nature. This artwork stands in dialogue with the British land art movement and India’s Tantric traditions. Kapoor’s position straddling these different cultural contexts allows him to playfully question how we connect to the social and natural worlds. As historians, further research might uncover the specific cultural traditions and artworks to which Kapoor is responding here. In doing so, we can consider the artist’s role in creating spaces for thinking about cultural identity.