What's worse, he violated the "two in the pink" rule.

[eye roll]Artists...[/eye roll]

I think there's a distinction to be made between an artist and a mere attention whore.

Kapoor though is a legitimate artist, so he could be both.

Looking at what he's done, I can't agree. I see no message beyond "I have too much money and not enough ideas."

Well you know, the thing about art is that everyone gets something different out of it.
I find his best works to be magical and mesmerizing, but they have to be seen in person to be appreciated. Photos do not convey this.

Art can be ugly or pretty, but it can't be just those things. If there's no message, it's just self-indulgence.

If a viewer gets somethiing from it then it's not really self-indulgence, is it? A 'message' need not be some kind of overt statement, it can be a purely sensory experience, well beyond simply 'ugly' or 'pretty'.

Hmm.

For those not familiar with Kapoor's sculptural works, they really are beautiful and compelling, often due to his uncompromising use of intense pigments.

He's still an ass for keeping the rights to vantablack to himself.

The pettiness of it all is so amusing to me.

Sure, of course history is replete with artists who were dicks but still made great art.

Any chance you can link or name works you'd recommend? Because I've seen a lot of his work (mostly by sifting through stuff tagger "Anish Kapoor" on Tumblr), and honestly, he strikes me as a pretentious wanker. For instance, I saw at least four pieces that looked like he'd spraypainted a giant salad bowl a bright color and glued it to a wall, posted by people who thought it was deep and meaningful. I also saw the Vanta hole in the ground. So far, I'm not impressed.

Photos of his smaller sculptures just don't do them justice, mainly because you lose the experience of the color and depth. Probably the first thing I ever saw of his was this piece at the Hirshhorn in DC. Yeah, the photo looks meh, but the interior of this thing is such a deep hue of indigo receding into black that you really feel like you're staring into an infinite void. It's a trippy, disorienting experience. Also check out his monumental works, like the Cloud Gate in Chicago

It's a giant funhouse mirror.

On one hand, I'm kinda impressed and wondering just how he went about making a huge, perfectly reflective stainless steel kidney bean.

On the other hand... it's a kidney bean. Admittedly a gigantic kidney bean, but still a kidney bean.

I suspect I'm one of those people who just can't get modern art.

Because wankers.