An unusual collaboration although it is not the first time that the Indian artist, creator of sculptures so big that they are compared to architecture, has worked with the UK architects on projects with sculptural forms, they previously teamed up in the competition for the memorial fountain for Princess Diana. It also emphasises a close collaboration between art and architecture.
The audacious choice by the Naples administration has been received with enthusiasm, as well as some irony on the part of Kapoor working on large scale projects such as the monumental “Taratantara” commissioned by the Baltic in Gateshead and shown in 2000 in Naples or the even bigger “Marsyas” that until a few months ago occupied the whole of the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern. “They’re mad” was the sculptor’s response, “it’s folly. They don't know what they've let themselves in for. But it's wonderful; I can't imagine anything better than doing a tube station”.
Little is known yet about what the station will be like. What is certain thought that it will not be the usual artist-architect collaboration in which the former supplies a sculpture to sit inside a space – Naples is asking for a station that is a work of art in itself.