Wax and mirrors, a deflating giant and a black hole: major Anish Kapoor show opens in Berlin

BERLIN – Conveyor belts hum quietly, towering over piles of dark red wax. A huge mauve balloon-like object sprawls and sags its way across three rooms.

A dark pigment circle creates the illusion of a black hole opening up in the floor. And there are lots of mirrors: convex, concave and twisting.

British-based artist Anish Kapoor has brought his world of impressions, illusions and colour to Berlin — creating a show for the city’s Martin-Gropius-Bau that combines work from as early as 1988 with newly created pieces.

Kapoor has filled a floor of the 19th-century building and its glass-topped atrium with some 70 works grand and small. He said Friday that his art centres on the “interplay between the viewer and the material.”

The show opens Saturday and runs through Nov. 24.