Anish Kapoor, one of the greatest sculptors of our time, loves Italy, a country where art has been being produced for thousands of years and where he most importantly has friends, admirers and collectors. But also an incredible history and past that he embraces with keen intelligence.

For Kapoor, Italy is also a source of inspiration for materials. Years ago, he asked me to go to Carrara and Pietrasanta to see where he might be able to create some new works. I visited all the workshops and found a few where Kapoor would later have some important sculptures made. Amidst all the marble that Italy has to offer and out of all of its craftsmen, in the end we found an ultra-modern workshop in Brescia, with sophisticated machines that made it possible for him to create sculptures that would have been impossible otherwise.

Kapoor chose a black block that weighed twenty tons and had it cut vertically in half. Imagine the marble in its natural state, straight from the quarry, its two inner surfaces facing one another, perfectly smooth. On these inner surfaces, he carved two arcs, also glossy.

The stones were set up at the entrance to the 1998 exhibition like a door. When you walked between them, you could see yourself reflected in the flat surface as well as the arcs. If you spoke, sang or shouted, the sound would echo back, amplified.

This experience left Kapoor wanting to work with other volumes and stones, and to spend time in Venice, where he could be inspired by the city’s spaces and light and the glories in the collection of the Gallerie dell’Accademia, which will host its first major exhibition of a British artist’s work during the 2022 Venice Biennale. The exhibition will be curated by the art historian Taco Dibbits, who dared to pair Kapoor with Rembrandt in 2016 at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, where he had just become general director.